Notes and Comments 
or three broods during the season. Pieces 
of rotten wood cemented with cow-dung are 
the nucleus of its nest, which forms when 
finished a neat water-tight abode unlike that 
of any other bird. lord Lilford, writing in 
1895, says: ““We seldom have many song- 
thrushes after the beginning of November, 
but two came constantly to be fed. There 
is no doubt that this species has suffered 
more than any of owr common birds [2.e., 
after a severe frost]. I have only once 
heard its song, and I only hear of some 
half-dozen nests about our pleasure-grounds, 
as against a usual average of twenty-five 
to thirty.” 
Wa" 
ONE of our most conspicuous British birds 
The 1s the Yellow 
Yellow- Bunting, or, 
Demet tom eiver it) its 
more common name, the 
Yellowhammer (Hmberiza 
citrinella). Not content 
with Nature’s generous 
gift of colour, by which 
it may be “spotted” a. 
long way off, this bird | 
courts observation by the 
habit it has of always 
choosing a prominent 
perch on the top of a 
bush or shrub. It builds 
later than the song- 
thrush—generally about 
the middle of April—and 
the young are hatched some two or three 
weeks later. The nest is a fairly large 
one, either on or near the ground, lined 
on the outside with dry grass and moss, 
and on the inside with horsehair. The eggs 
(of which there are at least two clutches 
in the season) are of a purplish colour, with 
curious hair-lhke markings; the young birds 
do not show any yellow until after their 
first moult in the autumn. Strictly speaking, 
in calling this bird a “yellowhammer” we are 
falsely aspirating the latter portion of the 
name, which, as Mr. Howard Saunders points 
out, undoubtedly has a common origin with: 
“Ammer,” the modern German word for a 
Bunting. Mr. J. Peat Millar, of Beith, is the 
YOUNG YELLOWHAMMER. 
319 
photographer of the bird reproduced on this 
page, and also of the thrushes on page 316. 
D7 
Apropos of certain articles which have ap- 
A peared in ANIMAL LIFE anent 
Monkey apes and monkeys, the following 
Punishment. 7 
communication from a Felix- 
stowe correspondent is not without interest: 
“JT was standing under a tree,” writes Mr. 
Howorth, “in a small wood, in India, many 
years ago, and it was full of monkeys (the 
common brown sort of the north-west), and 
on a low bough of the tree an old female 
was sitting fleaing herself, and a very young 
one by her. What the young one did to 
offend her I don’t know, for I was not look- 
ing at them, but her movements caught my 
attention. She seized the 
infant in her hands, laid 
it across her knees, and 
slapped it five or six times 
about the junction of the 
tail with the back, then 
restored it to its upright 
position with her left hand. 
The little one continued 
to lament, not loudly, but 
for two or three minutes, 
- and the old lady resumed 
her fleaing. It reminded 
me startlingly of a very 
similar style of punish- 
ment I had undergone in 
my youth, and astonished 
me to think of the immense 
time that sort and form of whipping must 
have gone on for it to be seen in a low form 
of monkey.” 
Os 
THE mysteries of French zoology are past 
Animal finding out. It has taken three 
Classification. Courts of Justice to define the 
status of frogs. Certain trappers of frogs, 
having been arrested for “fishing” at night, in 
violation of the Conservancy laws, were in- 
dicted before the Tribunal of Auch, which 
decided that frogs were not fishes. The case 
was taken, on appeal, to the Court of Agen, 
which was of opinion that frogs were fishes. 
Thence it went to the Court of Cassation, 
whose judgment was that frogs were not fishes. 
