358 Birds, 



spider ! Another singular circumstance occurred to the same family this year. By 

 the road-side they had a small box nailed to a gate-post, for the convenience of the 

 postman, in which letters kc.for and /row the post-office were deposited. The aper- 

 ture in the lid is only large enough to admit a newspaper, but through this tiny portal 

 a robin contrived to squeeze herself and building-apparatus, and made her nest, and 

 was not discovered until she had well stocked it with eggs (I think it was said eleven 

 or twelve, but cannot be certain). Upon opening the box it was found to be half filled 

 with moss ; this was cleared out and the box again closed. However, the next day, 

 much to the chagrin of the kind-hearted gent., he found one of his letters partly pecked 

 to pieces, and another pushed out of the hole in the lid, and lying some distance from 

 the box. I suppose the dear little creature suspected the letters of treachery, and so 

 vented her ire upon them, when she found her home pillaged and her little eggs gone.'* 

 Such is the tale, which, as my friend writes, " though strange is no less true." Mr. 

 Yarrell, in his admirable work on British Birds, gives us a very interesting anecdote 

 of the love displayed by robins to a peculiar place to build their nest in. You will 

 excuse me, I hope, for troubling you with this long letter; but having derived much 

 pleasure myself from the above account, I fancy it may be interesting at all events to 

 the younger readers of ' The Zoologist,' as illustrating a part of the economy of the 

 robin's life. — Frank Clifford ; Elvedon Rectory^ near Thetford^ October 2, 1 843. 



Observations on previous notes on the Grey Wagtail, (Zool. 136 and 230). As I 

 was dressing one morning about a fortnight ago, my attention was attracted by the 

 repeated passage of swallows {Hirundo rustica) close to my window. After watching 

 them a few seconds, it became obvious that they were engaged in capturing the flies 

 and other insects, which were basking in the sun on the walls of my residence. Very 

 soon after I first noticed them, and while I was still standing near the window, one of 

 the passers by caught sight of a small, rough, black fly (less than the common house- 

 fly), which was resting on the inner side of one of the upper panes. At first I thought 

 it would have tried to take the fly ; but after a pause, seemingly occupied in closer ob- 

 servation, it passed on again. The same evolution took place several times, and with 

 the like result in every case. On other parts of the window there were two or three 

 gnats kc. ; but of these the swallows seemed to take no notice. On the following 

 morning, and indeed for four or five successive mornings, the swallows, at the same 

 hour, were similarly employed : and again and again did one or other of them pause 

 before the same fly (which I had now discovered was a dead one, though without any 

 trace of external injury, fixed by its feet to the glass), but not one attempt was made 

 to seize it. All the actors in the scene seemed, after a near approach, to be aware that 

 such an attempt would be made in vain. I was strongly reminded by this scene of 

 the actions of the grey wagtail already described, (Zool. 136, 230); and being a little 

 sceptical on the subject of both the explanations there suggested, of such an unwonted 

 proceeding, my doubts (as to the former at least) were now greatly increased. It ap- 

 pears improbable that a wagtail should persevere in attempting to seize an insect that 

 existed only in its imagination, when a swallow, strongly attracted by a real fly, made 

 not even one eff'ort to take it from the glass : nor is the improbability lessened, if we 

 take other similar cases into account. Thus the trout, having taken the artificial fly 

 into his mouth, at once detects the cheat, and immediately ejects it if he can, that is 

 to say, if he has not been hooked. But does he take it again the next time it comes 

 over him ? No ! The angler may exert all his skill, — he may throw his fly, with the 

 lightness of thistle-down, to exactly the proper spot, — but he never raises that trout 



