44 



BIBB NOTES AND NEWS. 



LARKS. 



A Brighton correspondent says : 



" I saw on the fishmonger's hst one day, ' Larks,' 

 and I remonstrated with him about it. The man 

 said, ' Oh, these Larks are not the singing Larks, 

 but small ones that fly in flocks.' Is this true ? " 



It is, of course, not true. The Larks which 



sing, and the Larks which fly in flocks, and 



the Larks which are caged in Seven Dials, 



and the Larks which are eaten in Belgravia 



and Brighton are one and the same species, 



the Sky-Lark. 



THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 



AUusion was made in the last number of 

 Bird Notes and News to the evidence of 

 the Fishmongers' Company as to the " prac- 

 tically illimitable " supply of fish, Gulls 

 notwithstanding. The Rev. J. G. Tuck 

 now sends the report of a record haul of 

 herrings at Yarmouth, a boat coming into 

 harbour with ,over one hundred thousand 

 fish in her hold and a " wall of herrings 

 sixty feet long on deck." The skipper said 

 he had never before seen sucli a quantity 

 in the sea. Yet there are thousands of Gulls 

 on the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk. 

 BIRD FRIENDS, 



The cold days that have already hinted at 



approaching winter remind bird-lovers that 



a supply of bird-food in hard times is a ready 



means of bird-preservation and of paying in 



some small measure for the good work and 



songs of summer. A Member of the Society 



who has been remarkably successful in taming 



birds by this means, writes : 



" I think the Society would do well to get all 

 schools to go in for Wild Bird feeding. Few people, 

 young or old, can resist the fascination when once 

 they find the birds getting to know them. A friend 

 of mins has an aviary, and he strongly advised me 

 to start I ne. However, he was here one day, and 

 when he saw my tame wild birds he lost all interest 

 in his captives, and said he would give me the whole 

 structure, birds as well, if he could only have the 

 wild birds coming to his garden and window .... 

 What is wanted, I think, is to make jjeople under- 

 stand that they can make personal pets of wild birds 

 without caging them." 



This bird-lover does not stop at crumbs 



carelessly bestowed. He has a large " shelter " 



outside his window in which to place food, 



which in general consists of bread and fat 

 meat minced, then mixed with hemp, 

 maw and millet seed, and heated in a mass. 

 But soft-bills rejoice in an occasional treat of 

 meal-worms. One Thrush, he writes, knows 

 the meal-worm canister well, and as soon as 

 it appears comes to within three or four feet 

 of the window oj)ening and shutting its beak 

 in anticipation. He feeds them also in 

 spring and summer when there are little 

 families to provide for, and feels that he has 

 established a personal understanding on both 

 sides, the birds discriminating between the 

 members of his small home-circle and all 

 outsiders. 

 THE OUT-DOOR AVIARY. 



Tlie following quotation from the writer 



of a series of excellent articles " Concerning 

 Birds " in Life and Work (the Church of 

 Scotland Magazine) is of interest : 



" I have seen a wonderful little estate in the 

 midlands of England, where the Kestrel, the Stock- 

 dove, the Tree-Sparrow, the two Flycatchers, 

 four kinds of Tits, many Starlings, Robins, and a 

 Treecreeper nested in the boxes provided. Here 

 is such an easy, pleasant, and cheap way of 

 providing oneself with an open-air aviary that I 

 wonder every country bird-lover does not adoiDt it. 

 How much nobler it is to be protector of wild birds 

 than to be their gaoler, to have them for your 

 friends rather than your jjrisoners. Let some of 

 the hollies in your garden grow unpruned that the 

 members of the Thrush tribe may come to feed 

 on the berries in winter ; let some of your sun- 

 flowers go to seed ; let hips and haws remain on 

 j^our hedges. . . It really pays to have plenty 

 of birds about your garden. I speak of what 

 I myself have abimdantly proved." 



Nesting Boxes to assist in forming the 

 "Oat-door Aviary" can be had from the 

 R.S.P.B., who supply both Enghsh and 

 German makes. 



BIRDS AND HOLLY BERRIES. 

 A correspondent writes from Cornwall : 

 " This afternoon (November 9th) when on the 

 river I saw numbers of Thrushes, Blackbirds, and 

 Woodpigeons feasting on the glittering holly berries 

 on the river-bank. . . . Certainly it was plain 

 enough to-day that the birds are thankful for them, 

 for the trees were alive with birds, devouring the 

 Ijerries and flying in and out in the sunlight. The 

 boatman (a native of the place) laughs at the idea 

 as ridiculous that birds do not eat holly-berries ; 

 he has seen them do it ' livmdreds and hundreds 

 of times.' ... ' Yes,' he said, ' cartloads of 

 berried holly goes up from here for the London 

 Christnaas market.' " 



