148 BIKDS 



tion, squatting down on his foot while he w r as reading. 

 In the spring the bird flew away to join a flock of its own 

 species, and some time later (I think it was a year, but 

 I am telling this story from memory), the same man was 

 out shooting when a flock of widgeon passed over his head. 

 One of the birds detached itself from the flock and settled 

 on his shoulder, just like the parrot. 



Is it not extraordinary that there should exist thinking 

 men, learned in the ways of nature, who read the 

 tenderness and associative memory of actions like these 

 as composites of physico-chemical irritability ? 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S OWL 



It was an odd coincidence that on the day after the 

 announcement of Florence Nightingale's death I should 

 have read of her the following incident. It is to be found in 

 Vol. I., p. 202, of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff's " Notes 

 from a Diary," under the date July 20, 1862. As it will 

 appeal to all lovers of animals, I think it worth transcrib- 

 ing for the Spectator. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff had 

 spent the day mentioned at Clay don, Sir Harry Verney's 

 house. He proceeds : 



"Lady Verney is Miss Nightingale's sister, and one of 

 the curiosities of the house is a manuscript by Lady 

 Verney describing the life and adventures of her sister's 

 owl Athena, which, bought for 6 lepta from some children 

 into whose hands it had dropped out of its nest in the 

 Parthenon, was brought by Miss Nightingale to Trieste, 

 with a slip of a plane from the Ilissus and a cicala. At 

 Vienna the owl ate the cicala and was mesmerized, much 

 to the improvement of his temper. At Prague a waiter 

 was heard to say that ' this is the bird which all English 

 ladies carry with them, because it tells them when they 

 are to die.' It came to England by Berlin, lived at 

 Embley , Sea Hurst, and in London, travelled in Germany, 

 and stayed at Carlsbad while its mistress was at Kaiser- 



