250 Mr. J. H. Gurney on the [iWis, 



Middlesex^ *. A small pond in a garden at Muswell Hill 

 was emptied for the purpose of cleauino;, but there still 

 remained about three inches of water, and into this shallow 

 pool there were turned by the owner four dozen very small 

 Prussian carp. The following day a Kingfisher appeared, 

 and continued to visit the pond daily until nearly all the 

 little carp had vanished ; yet no Kingfisher had been seen 

 in the neighbourhood before the stocking of the pond, 

 and none were noted by the observer, Mr. J. H. Belfrage, 

 afterwards. 



The distance to which scent can, under the most favourable 

 circumstances, be carried by wind or any other agency h;is 

 some bearing on Mr. Becks story : but this is a point very 

 difficult of elucidation, and scarcely comes under the category 

 of ornitholoov. Macuillivrav mentions an instance in 

 which Ravens in the Hebrid(>s appeared to have smelt 

 carrion at a distance of six miles t. Also a somewhat similar 

 story is related by Saxby X: Jiutl there are other anecdotes 

 of much the same nature. For scent to be wafted to such 

 great distances certainly seems extraordinary, but our know- 

 ledge at present is almost nil, so conjectures are useless. 



We shall be the more ready to accept Mr. Beck's plausible 

 theory of a food-findino" sense if we remember that in birds 

 there undoubtedly is such a thing as a homing sense. 

 A homing sense exists in migratory birds which it is impos- 

 sible to be blind to. whatever may be alleged to the contraiy. 

 Granted that birds are the possessors of marvellous vision, 

 we may safely aver that the thousands of all sizes, from an 

 Eagle to a Golden-crested AVren, which cross great seas, 

 would never reach their objective year after year in the 

 numbers they do without some aid of this kind, which is 

 best denominated a homing sense — a something which holds 

 migratory birds to a true course between widely separated 

 points. 



To this unconscious homing instinct a food-finding sense 



* ' Bh-ds of Middlesex," p. 122. 



t ' History of British Birds,' i. p. 507. ? 



X 'The Birds of Shetland,' p. V22: ' ZoologiH,' 1864, p. 9125. 



