48 
NATURE NOTES 
almost stripped bare before making any serious attack on the S.E. tree. The same 
thing has happened in former winters, and others have noticed it besides myself. 
From the field-fares’ point of view it is evident that the S.E. tree supplies quality. 
In the bitter February of 1895 I saw a field-fare in a most unusual place. 
Before a house in a Maidstone street is a tiny garden, with just room, one may 
say, for a single holly tree. A field-fare had found this out, and was eating the 
berries. In the same month many birds (including jays) came into my garden, 
evidently hard-pressed for food. We had not yet taken down the Christmas 
decorations in this house, but we threw them out for the birds’ sake, and dry and 
shrivelled as the berries were, the field-fares were unquestionably glad to get 
them. Somewhat similarly this winter, I have put some berry-covered splints of 
wood from the church out on the lawn before my windows. The result at first 
was disappointing : a missel-thrush took possession, and even when not wanting to 
eat himself, would suffer no blackbird or song-thrush to touch the berries. By 
scattering them further I hope that I have given the weaker birds a chance. 
I should have mentioned that the berries of a “ Ilodgem ” holly (large red) 
were evidently approved ; as also those of an orange-berried tree ; but the pure 
yellow have not been touched that I can see. 
Othain, Maidstone. F. M. Millard. 
472. How High Birds Fly. — Some time ago this matter was touched 
upon in Nature Notes, when astonishment was caused by my saying that the 
Condor soars to a height of 40,000 feet, between seven and eight miles above 
sea level, in search of food ; and that several high-flying birds e.xceed this in 
their migratory flight. These statements, by no means singular, or devoid of 
authority, are not so impossible as they appear to those who have not had the 
opportunity of considering the subject. If it is possible for man, who is unac- 
customed to great altitudes, to e.xist at a distance of between 30,000 and 40,000 
feet above the level of the sea — and this has been proved by balloonists — it is 
reasonable to suppose that a race of birds, familiar for generations with great 
altitudes, must be able to exist at a longer distance from the earth than any 
human being. The higher a Condor soars the belter the chance it has of pro- 
curing food ; because the greater the height the greater the tract of country kept 
under observation. The highest flying Condor, then, being the best able to 
endure cold and rarity of atmosphere, and to procure food, is the most likely, 
according to the ordinary doctrine of evolution, to carry on the race. 
Much the same argument holds good in the case of high-flying migrants. 
The wisdom and experience of the race have taught them that when a flight 
of several thousand miles at a stretch has to be done (a perfoimance carried out 
by many birds), dangers are minimised and facilities increased the higher they 
go. In the upper regions, where the resistance of the air is slight, they attain 
a speed impossible in the denser air near the surface of the earth. They are 
beyond storms and fogs, and above impenetrable darkness. The highest flying 
bird, therefore, is the best able to surmount the dangers of a long journey, and 
the most likely to hand down its powers to posterity. These are some of the 
reasons for the belief that the altitude of the flight of birds is at limes very 
great. 
Soulhacre, Swaffham. Edmund Tuos. Daudeny. 
473. Pied Blackbirds. — Albinism in the Blackbird appears to be, to some 
extent, hereditary. A female blackbird with white head has now nested four 
years in succession in the ivy at the end of the house. .She has also a yellow 
bill, while the feathers on the rest of the body are of a somewhat darker hue than 
usual. She would, in fact, be taken for a male bird by any stranger. This 
winter two other blackbirds have frequented the garden, one with a white ring 
round the neck, the other with a splash of white on one side of the head, and 
a patch near the tail, and all three have been seen together and fed during the 
severe weather. A fourth was seen last week about a ([uarter of a mile away 
with several patches on the back. The young were not actually seen at the 
time of leaving the nest, but the inference is that these are all the progeny 
of the white-headed female. \V. 
