1 88 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly May 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Several letters have been sent to us addressed to W. Long, the writer 

 of ' School of the Woods' (Ginn & Co.) We beg to inform those cor- 

 respondents that Mr Long lives in America. We have forwarded the 

 letters, but hope that any further communications for him will be ac- 

 companied by stamps to cover the postage to America. Correspondents 

 will understand, therefore, why they may not have received replies for 

 some time. — Ed. F. N. Q. 



Doubtful, Gloucester. 



It is surely obvious that in a journal of this kind each contributor 

 must be held responsible for the statements made in any given article, 

 as well as for the opinions deduced therefrom by the writer. If you 

 doubt the facts stated we shall be pleased to forward to the writer any 

 communication you care to send for him, or to publish in these columns 

 any criticism which seems to us valuable. 



O. M. F., Yarmouth. 



Two migratory thrushes visit our islands in autumn and winter here. 

 The best known is the redwing {Turdus iiiacus), which is perhaps most 

 abundant in the well-cultivated midland, southern, and eastern counties. 

 It is the smallest of the British thrushes, gregarious, reaching our shores 

 in flocks towards the end of October or early November, visiting certain 

 localities from year to year. The second species is the fieldfare ( Turdus 

 pilaris), almost as widely distributed. It leaves us for its arctic breed- 

 ing-grounds in April, moving from its most southern haunts in March. 

 ('Open-Air Studies in Bird Life,' pp. 1 77, 178. Charles Dixon.) 



T. F. B., Chatham. 



Hemp-seed is said to cause bullfinches and other birds to become 

 black. 



M. E. S. Kerr, Dorchester. 



The portion of a snake which you forwarded, and which you say 

 "was found near Dorchester, and looked very like a common adder in 

 colour and markings, except that on seeing it bite I discovered that it 

 had not fangs," is part of a smooth snake {Coronella austriaca). This 

 is the third species of snake in Great Britain, and Dorset is one of its 

 few habitats ; indeed it was first recorded from that county by the late 

 Mr Frederick Bond and Mr Cambridge. It is very like the adder at a 

 short distance, but on careful examination we find that instead of the 

 zigzag dark mid-dorsal line there are two lines of dark patches on either 

 side of the middle of the back. Its food is mainly the sand lizard. 



Puzzled, Edin. 



So were we, by the question. A "vector" in quaternions is "a 

 directive quantity, as a straight line, a force, or a velocity. Vectors are 



