92 
HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
. 
Banff, Alberta, and reached Washington March 7 
in perfect condition. The shipment included one 
5-year-old ram, a younger ram, and three ewes. A 
ewe lamb wasi born on May 27. Two paddocks 
were opened together to give the sheep sufficient 
range, and the exhibit is one of the most important 
now shown by the park. The animals are doing 
well to date and although the wild sheep is one 
of the species most difficult to keep in eastern 
zoological gardens it is hoped that the animals 
comprising this accession may be kept on show 
for a considerable time. 
The Duke of Bedford made a further gift of 
four Bedford deer, or Manchurian stags, from his 
collection at Woburn Abbey, England. The Bed- 
ford deer (Cervus xanthopygus) is onei of a large 
group of Old World deer related to the American 
elk or wapiti, and has not heretofore been ex- 
hibited.. The animals received have been given 
a commodious yard bordering the creek on the 
eastern side of the park, near the yaks, and are 
doing splendidly in their new home. A thrifty 
fawn was born June 14. 
(To be continued.) 
GENERAL NOTES. 
By John D. Hamlyn. 
THAT the American Ambassador promised to 
be present at the annual meeting of the Royal 
Society for the Protection of Birds, at the Guild- 
hall, Westminster, to receive the Society's Gold 
Medal on behalf of Dr. W. T. Hornaday, of 
New York, to whom it has been awarded. A 
similar medal is also awarded to- Dr. C. Gordon 
Hewitt, D'.Sc., Dominion Entomologist and 
Consulting Zoologist. The Duchess of Port- 
land, President of the Society, will preside on 
the occasion. 
THAT an exceedingly rare little animal, a pure 
white mole, has been caught on Lord Ridley's 
Northumberland estate at Blagdon. Black 
moles are the rule, and brown ones the excep- 
tion, hence there is considerable interest in a 
white specimen. The freak, which was caught 
on ploughed land, is to be stuffed for the North- 
umberland and Durham Natural Historv Socie- 
ty- 
THAT Mr. G. W. D. Connolly writes :— 
" In a recent issue of the 'Frankfurter Zeit- 
ung' is published a letter from the Western 
Front about the effect on animal life of the gas 
attacks. The writer says that all the pets in 
the trenches suffer. The guinea pigs are the 
first to scent the gas, and the cats also com- 
plain at once. Many dead rats and mice are 
found in the trenches after gas ottacks. Owls 
are greatly excited. A number of horses have 
died of axphyxiation. Behind the front fowls 
and ducks are said to have become restless a 
quarter of an hour before gas clouls approached, 
and the gas kills ants, caterpillars, beetles, and 
butterflies. The writer says that he found a 
hedgehog and an adder both killed by gas. 
The only birds that seem indifferent to gas are 
sparrows." 
THAT a grey African parrot owned by Sergeant- 
major J. L. Williams, Steward of Hitchin Ter- 
ritorial Club, has laid its first egg in twenty- 
one years. The bird was thought to be a male. 
THAT Gareth, "Referee," writes: — 
" One hears and reads with amazement 
about the behaviour of birds on the battlefields. 
Many accounts have appeared in various papers, 
men home on leave tell the same story — the 
birds seem entirely to disregard the thunder of 
the guns, the turmoil of the strife; more than 
this, indeed, for Mr. Thoburn-Clarke, who deals 
with the subject in the 'English Review' this 
month, declares that 'bird life is now far more 
plentiful in Northern France and Flanders than 
before the war. ' Thus he tells us that in front 
of a certain nameless town still held by the Ger 
mans seagulls, green plover, and waterfowl are- 
plentiful where in 1915 not a bird wasi to be 
seen. The grim happenings, fraught with dan- 
ger as they are — Mr. Thoburn-Clarke observes- 
that thousands of birds must meet untimely 
deaths from gas, high explosives, and other 
incidents of warfare — actually seem to attract 
them ! He speaks of a sparrow that insisted on 
building a nest in an ammunition wagon, only 
desisting when she found that the wagon moved 
about every day. He has twice discovered 
hedge-sparrows' nests in wrecked wagons. To- 
one of them there came a cuckoo, and the fami- 
liar tragedy was enacted. He 'watched the 
sparrow feeding its huge nestling, and won- 
dered! how she could find enough food for it. T 
If it had been a house-sparrow one would have 
said 'serve her right,' but one is sorry for the 
poor little accentor, the more so as she is out- 
raged by being miscalled, not being a sparrow 
at all., Blackbirds build in corners of wire en- 
tanglements, the author noticed a little owl in 
an apple tree, a moor-hen had built her nest 
close by, partridges swarm in No Man's Land, 
swallows pay no attention to the guns, house- 
martins care nothing for them, the wild ducks 
in the marshes come and go night and morning' 
'just as they must have done in years gone by 
before war racked the land.- It would have 
been imagined that every creature with wings 
would have used them vigorously to escape far 
from the neighbourhood of the trenches, but 
they scorn to take any notice of the worst that 
the fighting men can do." 
Printedby W. J. Hasted & Son (T.U.), jo3, Mile End Road, E. 1. 
Street, London Docks, E. 1. 
and Published by J. D. Hamlym, 221, St. George's 
