Ill 



ON BIRDS USING OIL FROM GLANDS. 



TO THE EDITOR OF "THE NATURALIST." 



Seeing my friend Mr. Waterton's name mentioned in "The Naturalist/' 

 I the other day left the number with him for perusal, and to-day received 

 the following, which I think it is but fair to him to publish in the same 

 medium in which Mr. Fuller has made his observations. — R. Horson, 

 Leeds, March 12th, 1857. 



"I thank you for the loan of "The Naturalist," which I do not take 

 in. Will Mr. Fuller deign to satisfy me by stating positively that he 

 has seen with his own eyes the 'oily matter' from the gland of birds 

 upon the plumage of these said birds. I hold that all 'oily matter' is 

 injurious to the nature of feathers. I have never been able to detect the 

 slightest appearance of 'oily matter' on the plumage of the many birds (say 

 five thousand) which have passed under my dissecting-knife. Mr. Fuller 

 states that my remark concerning 'a painful operation, etc.,' 'is all nonsense.' 

 Will he obligingly say under what form of condemnatory words he would 

 wish me to notice his own remark, namely, 'that it is known that the 

 bones of swimming birds are not hollow, like those of other classes, but 

 filled with oily matter.' What says the learned ornithologist to the Wild 

 Duck, a swimming bird, having the principal bone in both of its wings 

 always hollow? — Charles Waterton, Walton Hall, March 12th., 1857." 



In any reply to this, I hope Mr. Fuller will be as brief as possible, 

 and the more so inasmuch as the arguments against the supposed use of 

 the oil gland have been overturned in the "Zoologist," page 751, etc., in 

 an article which, though considerably marred by flattery, is conclusive, so 

 far as the said arguments are concerned. — F. 0. Morris. 



Curious freak of a Dog. — The clergyman of this place has in his pos- 

 session a pointer, which, to prevent following him to church a few Sundays 

 ago, was ordered to be confined in the coach-house, but not liking her 

 confinement, she took advantage of escaping up the chimney, on the top of 

 which, to the clergyman's great surprise, she was standing when he left his 

 home to do his afternoon duty, the time for which was so close at hand that 

 he could not stay to see how the dog had attained her elevated position, or 

 how she would descend from it. On returning, and making an examina- 

 tion, he found that she had ascended the flue as a chimney-sweep, jumping 

 from the top of the chimney to the thatched roof, from thence to the 

 road which passes behind the house on a level with the eaves of the house, 

 having a passage of about five feet between the two; thus making her 



