Corresponde7ice. 313


Who can say ? As for the Greater and Lesser Birds of Paradise, the

verdict as to the suitability of this so-called " stuffy " house for these

specimens may be quite safely left in the hands of all aviculturists who

have seen them. Nevertheless they ate shaping as if they would thrive in

their new quarters in the Small Birds' House ; and I believe they would

do as well in the Western Aviary as they did in the Insect House.

Certainly they could hardly do better. However that may be Mr. Astley's

condemnation of the Insect House as a place where the lives of birds are

shortened may be politely dismissed as a judgment thoughtlessly formed

and recklessly expressed without reference to facts.


To think there is only one way and that one's own way of doing things

and to wrangle or remonstrate with those who follow a different course is

intensely human and is apparently almost as rampant now as it was in

Neolithic times. But older than the Neolithic age is the little realised

truth of the moral metaphorically expressed in the last two of the following

four lines : —


Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learnt it when the moose


And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night : —

There are nine and sixty wavs of constructing tribal lays,


And — every — single — one — of— them — is — right.


R. I. Pocock.



We have received from Professor Giacinto Martorelli, of Milan, a

copy of a very interesting contribution of his to the "Societa Italiana di

Scienze Naturali," on some new appearances in Italy of certain Siberian

and American migratory birds, and on the influence of the rotatory motion

of the earth on the general direction of migration.


After referring to his previous investigations on the subject of

migrator}' birds, especially with respect to the Thrushes and to his theorv

that the direction of their migration has to do with the rotator}' movements

of the earth and the great aerial currents which are produced, the Professor

in this paper turns his attention to migratory Geese and gives very interest-

ing details and measurements of three specimens that came under his notice

in 1906, and which he identifies as belonging to Branta nigricans (The Black

Brent Goose) a form which occurs in Western Arctic America and N. E.

Siberia. He then passes on to consider the geographical area of each of

the three forms into which the original species (Branta bernicla) is now

divided and summarises all the information we have of these birds.


Passing from the Branta specimens he dilates upon another great

migratory binh the North American Great Northern Shrike (Lanius

borealis) a bird which has not previously been recorded in Italy.


His general concluding considerations are very interesting as showiiig-

the bearing of the air currents in determining the deviation from N. to S.



