The Zoologist — October, 1874. 4185 



back for an instant, and anything she can lay hold upon flies. 

 Eggs are especially good in her sight — butter, bread, in short, 

 almost everything edible. Her love of investigation is truly 

 appalling; only a few days since a crash was heard, and no less 

 than four of our choicest chimney ornaments had come to grief. 

 In the fern-house it is not uncommon to find a choice specimen 

 uprooted — holes scratched in the garden at the root of a favourite 

 plant. Occasionally she visits our neighbours, on one occasion 

 carrying off a cooked rabbit, and causing the utmost con- 

 sternation. 



I have said she is a thief; at the same time she is a most 

 graceful beggar, sitting up in a most captivating manner, and 

 mewing not unlike a bronchitic cat. 



Of her destructive properties I can testify from repeated 

 observation. Rats she kills very quickly, but I am bound to say 

 in a sneaking manner; walking up to them, she appears to be 

 making friends, when instantly she grabs the back of the neck, 

 and all is over. Snakes she kills instantly, and with a rapidity 

 truly wonderful. Mice she has a contempt for, killing them and 

 eating at once. The snake she seizes at the back of the head : 

 I should like to see her with a very large one. Small birds she is 

 fond of, eating them ravenously. 



I cannot take leave of our little friend without once more 

 alluding to her affectionate manner, when sitting on my knees, 

 playing with my watch-chain, and playfully biting at my fingers 

 to make me play ; I can forgive her wickedness, when I see 

 her pretty antics and perfectly harmless demeanour. Long may 



she live. 



Joseph Smith. 



43, David Place, Jersey, 

 September 3, 1874. 



Ornithological Notes from Norfolk. 

 By H. Stevenson, Esq., F.L.S. 



(Continued from S. S. 3865.) 



January, 1874. 

 For the last fifteen years I have never known such a dearth of 

 ornithological occurrences, worth recording, as at the beginning 

 of the present year, the extreme mildness of the weather affording 



