26o A Few Notes on Bird Life, &c. [Sess. 



neck rubbed and other attentions paid him. I had him for 

 nearly three years, and was very sorry indeed to part with 

 him ; but as I could not leave him in the office during the 

 recess, and daren't take him home, he was given to one of 

 the boys, box and all. He was taken by him to a tea-ware- 

 house, but he felt the cold there so much that he used to get 

 into the oven whenever he had the chance, no matter how hot 

 it was at the time. As might be expected, he did not long sur- 

 vive in his new situation, the cold ultimately proving too much 

 for him. I was very grieved to hear of his death, as in my large 

 circle of pets he was, I think, one of the most interesting." 



Here endeth my friend's letter, and I have only to add that 

 the history of this mungoos exemplifies in a striking manner 

 the irony of fate. Instead of living in the odour of sanctity, 

 and being laid in sacred repository like his kindred, he 

 shuffled off this mortal coil in a London tea-warehouse, and 

 his last resting-place is unknown to history. Let us, how- 

 ever, hope that his trials are ended, and that he has now 

 passed to some happy hunting-ground where mice and rats 

 and every manner of reptiles abound, and where the tem- 

 perature is hot enough to satisfy even the constitution of a 

 mungoos. 



[In illustration of the above paper, a stuffed specimen of the ichneumon 

 or mungoos was kindly lent by Jlr Small, bird-stuffer, George Street.] 



VII.— ^ FEW NOTES ON BIRD LIFE, Etc. 

 By Mr A. B. HERBERT. 



{Read March 27, 1S89.) 



Many of you are aware that it is my custom to pay an annual 

 summer visit to a country house in the centre of England 

 where bird life of all kinds is strictly protected, and which 

 on this account, among others, has to me peculiar attractions, 

 and it has been thought that a few notes from observations 

 there might not be altogether uninteresting. I never make 



