44



Correspondence, Notes, etc.



Sir, —In the August number of the Magazine, Mr. Bertling gives an

interesting account of the opening by the Garden authorities of the Brush

Turkey’s mound at the Zoological Gardens.


I, too, feeling sure that no chicks were going to emerge from the

mound which my birds had raised, decided early in September to pull it to

pieces. I found seven eggs, deposited much as Mr. Bertliug describes,

about fifteen inches from the present base of the heap (which of course had

settled a great deal), and about a yard from the interior. Three appeared

to be unfertile, three seemed to have contained embryos which had

perished at an early stage, while one chick had hatched but had failed to

escape from the mound. Probably, as in the case at Regent’s Park, the

heap had become too compact; but I think that in my case, in addition,

the female had not laid her later eggs soon enough, and the heap had

cooled before their incubation had far advanced.


I quite think that the materials supplied should be of a loose and

open nature. (In my case I supplied much grass from the lawn-mowers,

which I think now was a mistake). But if Mr. Bertling provides, as lie

proposes, a large quantity of dead leaves, I should fear that there will be

no fermentation, which of course is indispensible.


I noticed the filmy sheaths, referred to by Mr. Bertling, upon the

flight feathers of the dead chick. W. H. St. Quintin.



THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE.


Sir, —Dr. Gunther’s interesting article on the breeding of the Red-

backed Shrike in captivity should I think not be passed over with no

further comment than the breeding of many foreign species calls for,

inasmuch as it has established one or two points which have hitherto not

been fully recognized by students of British birds.


In the “History of British Birds” by the late Henry Seebohm (Vol.

II. p. 607), that author argued that our common Butcher-bird impaled

insects upon thorns because the feet of Shrikes were not sufficiently

powerful to grasp their prey until torn in pieces by the sharply toothed

bill. That this was an error I always suspected, and Dr. Gunther has

effectually disposed of it by his observation that this bird does use its claws

in grasping its prey whilst pulling it to pieces.


In the case of soft insects like Cockroaches I pointed out (British

Birds with their Nests and Eggs, Vol. II. p. 10 footnote) that no less than

five full-grown specimens were swallowed entire : it would therefore seem

that hard-cased insects were probably dismembered rather to render them

more easily digestible, than to reduce their size; or perhaps, because a hard

insect of the same size as a full-grown cockroach might injure the tissues

of the oesophagus in its passage.


That small feet are not necessarily weak, is evident to anyone who



