12 NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
and other birds, I believe, show the amazing power of suddenly and 
simultaneously changing directions often at a considerable angle to 
the previous one. The movement is often like a louvre or venetian 
blind in the general effect produced. There are evidences of this 
simultaneous movement traceable, it seems to me, in various living 
things, ¢.g. — 
Gnats—in their dancing movements. 
Fish -- rising in a lake or river, but especially in the former. 
Birds —as aforesaid. 
With regard to fish I could quote several instances, particularly one 
concerning a Welsh mountain lake, Llyn Conaght, where I spent a 
large part of a day fishing with a friend. It wasa mixed day as 
regards weather, unmixed as regards failure to take fish, although my 
companion was an expert. We saw more rising fish that day than I 
have ever seen anywhere else. The fish were sporting with some 
fly which was on the water in profusion. At moments the fish were 
rising all over the lake, at other moments they were quiescent, and 
this without obvious cause, though at times it seemed to be con- 
nected in some way with light cloud or drifting mist which always 
seemed to put them down. 
Hugh Miller says * anent this matter, ‘In middle autumn and 
the close of the herring season, when the fish have just spawned, 
and the congregated masses are breaking up on shallow and skerry 
and dispersing by myriads over the deep seas; they rise at times to 
the surface by a movement so simultaneous that for miles and miles 
around the skiff of the fisherman nothing may be seen but the 
bright glitter of the scales as if the entire face of the deep were a 
blue robe spangled with silver.” It is this simultaneous movement 
which calls for explanation, and it seems to offer a good subject for 
debate. The idea has been put forward that dumb animals may 
have some mode of communication which lies outside the ordinary 
senses as we know them—a kind of telepathy may be. 
To conclude with a passing allusion to local matters: Several 
people, including myself, have seen the kingfisher of late in the 
accustomed spot, and I am told that a pair of these birds was seen 
a little while ago just above the bridge, in the neighbourhood of 
the Baths. The sparrow hawks have been rather prominent from 
the Bridge and Stapenhill Road for some time past, and it has been 
very curious to see them hovering over the water as well as over 
land, though I have not seen them swoop into the water as yet. 
*“ Old Red Sandstone.” 
