276 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



hybrid between the Common and Briinnich's Guillemots. Whether 

 the Icelandic breeding-grounds of the two species overlap I do not 

 know, but the bird in question, which Dr. Saxby sent me in the flesh, 

 was very thin, and gave me the idea of being a storm-driven wanderer. 

 I just missed getting the Cambridgeshire Briinnich's Guillemot which 

 we have here (cf. Zool. 1895, p. 109) in the flesh, but should imagine that 

 no two birds could be found more similar in size, structure, and habits 

 than the two species of Guillemot, and more likely to interbreed. We 

 have here a hybrid between the House- Sparrow and Tree- Sparrow 

 (cf. Zool. 1894, p. Ill), and the interbreeding of Pied and White Wag- 

 tails is not uncommon. Should Dr. Saxby ever obtain another Guille- 

 mot like the one he kindly sent me, and which I felt all along ought to 

 have been in his own possession, no doubt he will record it ; but my own 

 impression is that he will not soon meet with a similar one. — Julian 

 G. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk). 



Birds and the Resonance of War. — I remember reading, after the 

 termination of the Franco-German war, and the fall of the Commune, 

 that birds had been scared from the neighbourhood around Paris by 

 the sound of the heavy firing, and the farmers had consequently 

 suffered from a multiplicity of insect-foes. I had always concluded 

 that such an occurrence was inevitable where the din of warfare had 

 abounded, and have been considerably surprised by meeting with what 

 appears to be somewhat contradictory evidence in the annals of the 

 recent war in South Africa. 



Thus at the battle of Colenso, or Tugela River, very heavy firing 

 took place, and, in the words of a bandsman, " the crescendo in Rossini's 

 ' William Tell' was fairly eclipsed by the effect of the guns."* Mr. 

 Bennett Burleigh, writing on this engagement, says : — "The battle 

 proceeded with undiminished fury ; yet, as in all big actions, there 

 were those unaccountable and strange lulls, when the sound of conflict 

 drifted into silence, the birds took top their songs," &c.f (the italics are 

 our own). 



Again, during the siege of Ladysmith, Chief Engineer C.C. Sheen, 

 R.N., writes: — " The gum-trees were full of the hanging nests of the 

 Weaver-birds, or South African Canary, as the inhabitants called 

 them ; and the presence of these pretty little birds in the camp 

 seemed to lend an air of security and peace to the surroundings, in 

 spite of the incessant scream and splash of the shells, as they passed 



* ' The Epistles of Atkins,' p. 51. 

 t ' The Natal Campaign,' p. 201. 



