Correspondence.



295



The casts were coated apparently with moles’ fur. He opened one or two

and I think it was the second that contained the skull of my (?) little budgerigar.


There must have been at least a hundred casts I should think and the skull

puzzled me very much for some time until I remembered my little bird’s escape,

as all the feathers had disappeared and there seemed to be no trace of any kind

of feather in the coating of the cast.


Siskins during the winter at different times, two sparrows and a chaffinch

got into the aviary and though I turned them out fairly soon I saw them all dead

within a few days. I do not know what killed them, not cats or the sparrows,

as they were not mauled and they looked very well when liberated. A cat did

get the chaffinch I think.


Hawkstone, Salop. ALFRED A. THOM.



THE UTILITY OF OWLS.


Taken out of a Barn owl’s tree at Keswick, in Norfolk (April 10th, 19111 :

114 “pellets” containing the skulls of:—19 very small rats, 126 long- ai

short-tailed field-mice, 69 shrew mice, 3 small birds (perhaps greenfinches!

No game.


SIR,—Do you think it would interest any of the members of the Avieul-

tural Society to hear that a Lesser spotted woodpecker was seen here early in

May ? Possibly it may be unusual for such a rare bird to be seen so near London.

It is the first time I have had the good fortune to see this bird at liberty, and it

was interesting to notice that its plumage looked much more brilliant against

the green leaves than in a show cage. Fortunately it came on to an exposed

branch, along which it ran, giving a good opportunity of seeing it plainly.

There seems good reasons to hope that it escaped being shot.


31 Church Crescent, fe. BRAMPTON.


Church End, Finchley.


EXTRAORDINARY SITE OP A YELLOW-HAMMER’S NEST.


Captain Sir RICHARD SUTTON writes to the Editor from the front in France:

“ You will hardly believe it, but a yellow-hammer nested and reared its brood

between the sandbags of the emplacement of one of our big guns. No matter

how much the gun was fired, the bird never moved, although only 6 feet from

the muzzle.


The noise of course is terrific, and the concussion has broken all the glass

in the windows of a cottage close by. No one who had not seen, would believe

such a thing to be possible; it might interest the readers of the “Avicultural

Magazine.”



ERRATA.—“ House ” should read “ horse,” p. 258, last line but one.

Monthly notes for July, by Secretarius.



