146 TPiE ZOOLOGIST. 



colour nor a good ear for bird-music, while occasionally want of close 

 observation has led to his attributing to certain birds habits which they do 

 not possess. Witness the line in ■ The Poet's Song,' where 



" The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee," 



and the allusion in ' In Memoriam,' to 



" The distant sea where now the sea-mew pipes or dives" 



— attributes which are not possessed by any species of sea-gull. On the 

 other hand, it must be allowed that there are several allusions to birds to 

 which no exception can be taken. Such, for example, as the lines in 

 ' The May Queen '— 



" The building rook will caw from the windy tall elm tree, 

 And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea." 



Here the term " pipe " is strictly appropriate. Again, in * The Gardener's 

 Daughter,' the Blackbird's song is poetically alluded to the line — 



" The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm." 



But a few such happy expressions as these do not of themselves entitle 

 the departed laureate to be regarded as more than an ordinary lover 

 of birds, while as an ornithologist, in the proper sense of the term, he 

 shows himself, in my humble judgment, inferior to many English poets 

 who have preceded him. — J. E. Harting. 



MAMMALIA. 



Animals poisoned by Yew. — Sometimes, in connection with reported 

 cases of yew poisoning, attempts are made to explain the apparently 

 uncertain action of the poison upon animals, by suggesting that the effect 

 depends upon the sex of the tree upon which the animal has browsed. We 

 have many yews here, and I can remember at least five cases of evident 

 yew poisoning, including sheep (about twenty), horses, and a donkey. At 

 this moment the sex of the tree is easily to be distinguished, as the pollen 

 from the male trees flies in clouds at the slightest touch. T have just been 

 to examine a tree which caused the death of a keeper's pony some years 

 ago, which was tied to the stem for a few minutes, and at whose post mortem 

 I was present. The tree — a detached one, and of considerable age — is a 

 Hia le. — W. H. St. Quintin (Scampston Hall, Rillington, York). 



The Black Rat in Portugal. — Although nearly extinct in this country, 

 Mus rattus is still fairly plentiful elsewhere. In Oporto, for example, 

 I have seen many trapped both in dwelling houses and in wine stores. 

 The Portuguese workmen call them "padres" (or priests). Their fur is 

 much longer and finer than that of the Brown Rat, Mus decumanus, which 

 in Portugal is by far the commoner of the two.— C. S. Gordon (Glencairn, 

 The Ridgeway, Willesden). 



