178 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



" in season," and many of the fishermen I visited had 

 the walls of their cottages hung with dried " cats " 

 — " cat-o'-nine-tails " being the Jersey fisherman's 

 logical name for a mollusc possessing eight tentacles. 

 When properly dressed and cooked, the octopus is by 

 no means bad eating, a large one skinned and grilled 

 being really palatable and unlike anything else in 

 flavour. 



I was fortunate to be in Jersey during one of the 

 best spring tides of the year, and was thus enabled to 

 walk over part of the sea bed very seldom exposed 

 to view ; but as this paper has reached its limit I will 

 reserve my further observations for another article. 



Ci-oydon. June ^, 1884. 



MY WINDOW PETS. 



TO the true naturalist there are few things more 

 pleasing than the confidence exhibited by the 

 lower creatures, when encouraged to become familiar 

 by a long course of kindness. This trustfulness is, 

 perhaps, to be expected] when the creature is a 

 domestic pet — one familiarised with him whose hand 

 supplies the daily food — but doubly pleasing does it 

 become when the pet is one enjoying its wild freedom 

 —this being more particularly true of birds. 



What true ornithologist would cage the gladsome 

 bird rejoicing in its freedom ; who fetter the joyous 

 spirits of creatures so exquisitely fitted for facility of 

 motion ? Some, indeed, there are who would — nay, 

 do — but of their number am not I, far preferring to 

 see them exhibiting their manifold beauties, and 

 graceful airy movements as near to my person as if 

 they were caged, and yet, as free to come and go as 

 if such an individual as myself were not in existence. 



How accomplish this? methinks I hear a reader 

 ask. Simply thus. 



Without my sitting-room window I have placed 

 across from wall to wall, and about midway up the 

 lowest panes, a slender, unbarked stick, and daily, 

 both summer and winter, at the hour of one, or 

 thereabout, I spread a portion of food. Summer, bread 

 crumbs alone ; all the rest of the year, bread crumbs 

 and chopped up mutton fat mixed. So nice is their 

 perception of lime that, half an hour beforehand, the 

 garden near the house teems with my pensioners, 

 who, flitting from spray to spray, await the scattering 

 of the daily portion to alight and feast. One of the 

 'first to descend is that active little fellow the cole 

 titmouse {Pari/s alir), who, poised upon the blossom 

 of a giant wallflower, Mhich scarcely bends beneath 

 his tiny weight, for scarce an instant surveys the 

 spread feast. Alighting upon the perch on his way, 

 he snatches from the sill the most alluring morsel of 

 fat, and lo ! as quickly as he came he goes, to return 

 almost immediately for another scrap, and so, till all 

 is gone. Most delightfully indifferent is he to our 

 presence, and, when not disturbed by other sharers in 



the feast, eats his morsels upon the perch, casting 

 many a friendly glance at his purveyors. He is a 

 busy little fellow, and has a large place in my affec- 

 tions, on account of his trustful character. No 

 match is he for that courageous, azure-capped little 

 bird, the blue titmouse {Pants ca:rukiis), who, unless 

 too busy laying in his own stock of provisions, drives 

 him from the scene. A most pugnacious little rascal 

 is the blue tit, and although, at times, as many as 

 five or six are quietly feeding side by side, more often 

 than not one more combative than his fellows loses a 

 good portion of his own meal, whilst he tries hard to 

 keep them from theirs. He, too, is a very trustful 

 little fellow, and seldom indeed is it that two or three 

 are not busily employed picking up the microscopic 

 crumbs, left after the bulk of the feast has been 

 devoured ; and many a tap against the window panes 

 may be heard, as, standing on tiptoe, some blue cap 

 peeps in, seeming to say as plainly as words could 

 do, " Nothing to cat — have you nothing more for 

 us ? " 



Foremost for beauty of plumage, if not for spright- 

 liness, next comes our largest titmouse, that active 

 and restless bird the titmouse, the greater titmouse, 

 or oxeye [Pants major). It is a beautiful bird, the 

 yellow and rich blue-black of its plumage presenting 

 a contrast that the most unobservant could scarcely 

 overlook. 



A great benefactor is he to the gardener, being 

 most active in his search for insects, which I, as an 

 apiarian, know to my cost. 



I have somewhere seen it stated, that this bird will 

 not eat bread crumbs ; a statement not in accord with 

 my own almost daily observations, during the past 

 four years. Undoubtedly he is very partial to mutton 

 fat — a partiality shared in common with many other 

 birds — but when of thai there is none, he certainly 

 does not disdain the humble crumb. His call note so 

 closely resembles the " twink, twink " of the chaffinch 

 as occasionally to deceive the most practised ear. 



Who does not listen with delight to the soft and 

 joyous strains of our confiding, homely little friend, 

 robin redbreast [Eiythaca rubccicla) ? Of course he 

 never fails to put in an appearance. Even whilst I 

 write he trills his sweet lay from the perch, literally 

 singing for the meal he so patiently waits for, and 

 casting, ever and anon, his most lovely eye towards 

 the room, to see if there are any signs of its coming. 

 At this time of the year two pairs occasionally alight 

 on the window-sill at the same moment, it is for an 

 instant or two only, and more frequently one pair 

 makes a quick departure as the other appears, the 

 boldest seeming to consider it a point of duty to keep 

 the coast clear of all intruders. I am sorry to say 

 that Robin has a most unamiable trait in his charac- 

 ter, being decidedly quarrelsome, and even blood- 

 thirsty, but he atones for this fault by the exhibitioa 

 of many virtues. 



Another bird most familiar witli me is that lovely. 



