JUNE 107 



shrews (Sorex vulgaris),pa.j the death penalty for their 

 resemblance to mice. It should be more generally 

 understood than it is by gardeners and amateurs that 

 the shrews have no affinity with mice and voles. They 

 belong to a totally different Natural order, forming, with 

 the hedgehog and the mole, the British representatives 

 of the Insectivorce or Insect Eaters. Owls, I believe, 

 devour shrews greedily; but dogs and cats, though 

 they kill them readily, are deterred from eating them 

 by the malodorous secretion of certain glands. The 

 corpses of shrews, therefore, which I find lying about 

 the garden, must be set down to the misguided industry 

 of the kitchen cat. 



Since writing this note I have received a letter from 

 a friend at the other end of the county whose owls 

 seem to be of a more truculent disposition than ours. 



1 Above the stable loft, within a few yards of my office 

 door, there is a pigeon cote. Twelve or fifteen years ago 

 three tumbler pigeons arrived of their own volition and took 

 possession of the cote, which was then vacant. They became 

 very tame and would feed out of my hand. Shortly after- 

 wards, two of them disappeared mysteriously ; the third 

 remained. I noticed that this bird was always at the 

 entrance of the cote in the evening, and I wondered why it 

 did not go inside. I was soon enlightened, however, for I 

 saw the pigeon attacked one evening by some enemy from 

 inside the cote. The bird got away, but it clung to the 

 place for a few days, not venturing, however, so far as I saw, 

 back to the cote, and eventually leaving us altogether. On 

 investigating the cause of the trouble, I found that a pair of 

 barn owls had taken possession of the cote. They nested 

 there, and brought forth three young ones. Since that time, 

 there has been a brood of owlets every year. This season 



