NOTES AND QUERIES. 427 



impetus by half flying, half running. Out of the fourteen or fifteen birds 

 I handled, one only attempted to peck my finger. A very slight pinch was 

 the result, although I tried to stimulate its energy by teasing it with my 

 finger. The other birds persistently refused to " bite." There were, 

 however, no young to defend. The scent which pervades the Shearwater's 

 burrow is, although faint, an almost unerring guide to an inhabited or 

 recently-used hole. Ornithologists who carefully used their noses would 

 seldom have to dig in vain. With regard to the food of the Manx Shear- 

 water, the Rev. H. A. Macpherson's observations are surely not sufficiently 

 precise to establish as a fact that it consists largely of surface-fish. If he 

 actually saw the Shearwaters catching the fish on which he assumed that 

 they and the Herring Gulls were feeding, of course the question would be 

 set at rest. Neither does the substance, pronounced by Dr. Fletcher to 

 be fish-muscle, seem to throw much light on the subject; for it may as 

 possibly have been some scrap of floating offal as a portion of a fish caught 

 alive by the bird. The absence of bones, which would probably be last 

 digested, is also significant. The bill of the Manx Shearwater is slender 

 and weak, so that if this bird does, as is likely enough, occasionally feed 

 upon fish caught by itself, its prey is probably very small fry. One would 

 suppose further that a bird so weakly armed for offence or defence as the 

 Shearwater must stand a poor chauce of getting more than hard knocks 

 when feeding with sucli strong and greedy robbers as the larger Gulls. — 

 C. R. Gawen (Chetwyud Park, Newport, Salop). 



Habits of the Turtle Dove. — My brother's note (p. 389) has 

 suggested to me that some further particulars of the Turtle Doves which 

 he incidentally mentions may be acceptable to some of your readers. For 

 the last few years of my father's life he was an invalid, and u*ed to derive 

 much amusement from watching and feeding the birds which frequented 

 his garden. The graceful beauty of the Doves, and the fact that they 

 alone of the summer migrants could be brought up close to the house by 

 feeding, made them his special favourites. They were fed with turnip-seed 

 and white peas, of which they seemed to be very fond, and doubtless the 

 Wood Pigeons and Stock Doves, which remained with us all the winter, 

 served as decoys for the Doves. These used to appear about the end of 

 April, the earliest date being the 24th, and throughout the months of May 

 and June they increased in number almost daily. The largest gathering 

 of Doves of which I can find any record in my father's notes is fifty-four, 

 counted on June 21st, 1886. In July and August the numbers rapidly 

 diminished, and by the end of August hardly one could be seen. The old 

 birds very rarely brought their young ones to be fed, but seemed rather to 

 take them away to the fields. I should say that not one-sixth of the number 

 which came to feed nested anywhere about the property. In 1884, a 

 white Turtle Dove appeared once or twice with the others. I did nut 



