Correspondence.



55



A MOUSE HUNT.


SIR,—Some time ago. when I was on a visit to the Zoological Gardens, I

was much interested in watching the curious way in which a hen Reeves’

Pheasant was behaving. I stood still observing her movements for some time,

and then saw that a mouse seemed to be the cause of her trouble. The bird was

continually running after it, as if trying to catch it, and after some time gave

the chase up as if tired of the game.


The cock bird then took up the running, and after a sharp chase eventually

caught the mouse, which he held in his beak, notwithstanding its struggles, and

walked about as if he was very proud of his capture. Then he proceeded to

shake the mouse just as a terrier would a rat, and after it was dead, threw it up

into the air, caught it in his beak and swallowed it whole.


I was not aware that pheasants ever fed in this way, or upon such food,

and upon mentioning these facts at a meeting of the B.O.C., was informed by

the late Mr. Tegelmeier that he had never heard of such a case. I thought it

possible these facts may be of interest to the readers of the Magazine.


H. MUNT.


BIRDS LAYING TWO EGGS IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.


SIR,—I have read in the A vicultural Magazine of June 1907, on page

255, a letter from Mr. Bonhote recording instances of birds laying two eggs in

twenty-four hours. Mr. Bonhote, in the last paragraph of his letter, asks if any

of our members could furnish further iustances.


I have in my collection of parrots’ eggs, three eggs of the Undulated

Grass Parrakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus ) that were laid in the night, 13th

November, 1912. These eggs are abnormal, being about a quarter the size of the

typical egg. I could supply the exact measurements if it is considered necessary.

The chief point of interest about these eggs is the colour, which is a light blue.


I have a fine collection of parrot eggs, and some hundreds have passed

through my hands, but these are the first specimens I have ever seen coloured.

I may add that a similar egg was laid by the same bird and coloured in the same

way a day or so afterwards. This egg I also possess. H. MUNT.


[Such eggs ought to produce Blue Budgerigars.—ED.]


THE NIGHTJAR.


SIR,—Miss Leeke will perhaps pardon me if I tell her that the bird she

heard and saw flying at a height round a marshy meadow last June was not a

Nightjar but a Common Snipe, executing those peculiar evolutions which it

usually indulges in during the breeding season. She is not the first to be deceived

by the strange sound made by this bird in passing obliquely downward through

the air and which naturalists usually call “drumming.” We are suddenly

arrested by hearing a tremulous sound, much resembiing that of a lamb bleating



