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WALKS ABOUT BRADFORD. 



One Hundred and Eighty Pleasant Walks around Bradford ; including 

 a Notice of the Town and its Public Buildings ; also a short Sketch and 

 History of Forty-six Villages, and Complete Guide to the District Six to 

 Ten Miles around Bradford. By Johnnie Gray . . . Illustrated. . . . 

 Bradford : T. Brkar & Cq. . . 1890. [8vo, cloth, pp. xx + 188]. 



Under the above title we have before us an admirably-arranged 

 and concisely-written handbook for pedestrians using Bradford as 

 a starting-point, and one which will create an interest in many 

 objects which would otherwise be passed over unnoticed. Natural 

 history — though by no means a main object — is well attended to, 

 and not only are there given here and there interesting references 

 to birds or plants found in certain locahties, but there is a short 

 chapter on geology, and another on botany is useful as giving 

 localities for a number of plants belonging to the well-worked (and 

 therefore rich) Bradford flora ; while the chapter on Folk-lore which 

 follows is also of interest to naturalists. The alphabetical arrange- 

 ment of the localities treated of, the clearness and intelligibiUty of 

 the typographical arrangement, and the absence of verbiage, are all 

 points in recommendation of this little work, which we must not fail 

 to note is copiously illustrated with wood blocks. 



NO TES— MAMMALIA . 



Whale at the Tees Mouth. — Hearing from one of the Redcar pilots that 

 a Whale had been captured at the Tees mouth yesterday, I went up to the Break- 

 water this morning to see if it was still there, and learnt the following particulars 

 from a salmon-tisherman who had assisted at the capture. It appears that about 

 high-tide a large Whale was noticed in the little boat harbour near the Tees 

 Defence Works on the South Gare, and some fishermen, who had been engaged 

 with their salmon-nets at the mouth of the river, succeeded in fixing a pair of 

 graplings in the blowhole, and then hauled it to the side, and made it fast by 

 a rope to a post on the bank ; but, thinking it was of no value to them, after 

 about half an hour they let it go again. Its head was lying on a sloping boat 

 gangway, and, as the tide was ebbing, it would soon have been high and dry. 

 However, it managed to struggle into deep water, and for two hours afterwards 

 was swimming about the harbour trying to find a way out, which it eventually 

 managed to do, and made off down the river. My informant said it was bleeding 

 from the graplings' wounds in the blowhole, and also in other parts which had 

 come into contact with the slag on the river's bank. He described it as being 

 about twenty feet in length ; its head flat, like an elephant's, with a nose eighteen 

 inches or two feet long and as thick as a man's thigh ; the colour was dark on the 

 back and light underneath. 



Is there any record of two Whales which were brought ashore here some 

 twenty years ago ? One was 26 ft. in length ; the other, presumably a young one, 

 was much smaller. — T. H. Nelson, Redcar, loth July, 1890. 



[There is little doubt from the above slight description that the Whale was 

 of the Common Beaked species {HyperoMon rostratus Miiller). — W.E.C.] 



Squirrels and Fungi. — Is it a known fact that squirrels eat fungi? I was 

 watching a Squirrel [Scitinis vulgaris) eating n flat white thing like a biscuit, 

 which it held in its paws and nibbled. On my approaching nearer it let fall 

 the substance, which proved to be a fungus, the stalk of which was at the foot of 

 the tree, pulled up and nibbled.— A. G. Jarvis, Woodhall Spa, July 1 2th, 1890. 



Naturalist^ 



