NOTES AND QUERIES. 145 



They seem to have "gone for" the Rooks' eggs, and Mr. 0. V. Aplin and 

 I found fragments of shells under the tree when we visited it two or three 

 days later. They hung about the village for several days, and have only 

 at last been driven away by unsuccessful attempts to shoot them. Before 

 they left us these rascally pirates had completed their work by ransacking 

 the nests that had escaped their first attack ; and now we have not a single 

 pair of Rooks left in our settlement. All the familiar cawing of a spring 

 day is hushed ; and the same fate will doubtless overtake other rookeries 

 if the brigands long escape the gun. Why could not the Rooks combine 

 to defend themselves? — W. Warde Fowler (Kingham, Chipping Norton). 



The Southward Flight of a Crane in Autumn.— In the recently 

 published work by Rudolf Slatin Pasha, Colonel in the Egyptian Army, 

 entitled ■ Fire and Sword in the Sudan : a Personal Narrative of fighting 

 and serving the Dervishes, 1879-1895,' translated by Major F. R. Wingate, 

 C.B., Director of Military Intelligence, Egyptian Army, the following 

 curious story is told (pp. 497-498), concerning the capture of a Crane in the 

 Sudan which had been liberated with a message attached to it in a cartridge- 

 case from Ascania Nova, Taurida, in Southern Russia. The incident 

 suggests the route taken by these birds when quitting the South of Europe 

 for their winter quarters in Africa. Slatin Pasha thus relates it: — " One 

 day, in the month of December, 1892, when I had just left the Khalifa's door 

 to take a short rest, one of the Mulazemiu summoned me to the Khalifa's 

 presence. I found him in the reception-room, surrounded by his Kadis, 

 and the threats and reprimands which I had received on the occasion of 

 Taib Haj Ali's calumny were still fresh in my mind. 1 was therefore 

 considerably dismayed when the Khalifa, without returning my salute, 

 ordered me to take my seat among the judges. ' Take this thing,' said he, 

 after a short pause, and in a very severe tone, 'and see what it contains.' 

 I at once arose and took in both hands the object he gave me, and then 

 sat down again. It consisted of a brass ring of about four centimetres in 

 diameter, attached to which was a small metal case about the size and shape 

 of a revolver-cartridge. An attempt had been made to open it, and I could 

 plainly see that it contained a paper. This was indeed an anxious moment 

 for me. Could it be a letter from my relations, or from the Egyptian 

 Government; and had the messenger who brought it been captured? 

 Whilst I was engaged in opening the case with the knife that had been 

 given to me, I turned over in my mind how I should act and what I should 

 say ; and, as good luck would have it, I had not on this occasion to have 

 recourse to dissimulation. Pulling out two small papers and opening them, 

 I found inscribed on them, in minute but legible handwriting, in German, 

 French, English, and Russian languages, the following: — 



• This Crane has been bred and brought up on my estate at Ascania 

 Nova, in the Province of Taurida, in South Russia. Whoever catches or 



