66 
NATURAL HISTORY QUERIES. 
ANSWERS. 
119. Comfrey. — According to Professor Henslow, who has recently 
brought out a most interesting little book on the “Uses of British Plants,”* 
comfrey “was used for quinsy and whooping cough, as well as for bruises,” also 
“ the foliage, when young, is often eaten in the country as a vegetable ; it also 
affords excellent fodder for cattle.” One or more of these uses may account for 
iis being grown in gardens, especially the blue or purple form, which is less 
common, and perhaps therefore more attractive than the white. This is a reply 
to No. Ii6. 
Hale End, Chingford. C. NICHOLSON. 
120. Robins Killing their Parents. — Mr. Blackett (No. ii7)maybe 
quite sure that there is na truth in the statement that “ robins do not often live 
more than a year,” if it is based on the superstition that robins always kill their 
parent.'. Like all other superstitions, this one is due to ignorance and a lack of 
observation, founded, so to speak, on a fact. Robins fight desperately at pairing 
time, and do not hesitate to attack any of their own species, as well as other 
birds, which may intrude on the particular estates, deme.snes or kingdoms which 
they look upon as sacred to themselves. Hence pitched battles between fathers 
and sons, or brothers, or any other male relations are frequent, and one (or some- 
times both) of the combatants w/oy be mortally wounded ; but the killing is 
merely incidental and not in the nature of a family vendetta. On the contrary, 
this habit is a wise provision of Nature, tending to the prevention of overcrowd- 
ing, the distribution of robins being in every way more beneficial than their 
concentration. 
Hale End, Chingford. C. NICHOLSON. 
ASTRONOMICAL NOTES FOR APRIL, 1907. 
’Venus will be a morning star, rising about one hour only before the sun. Very 
near Saturn on April 21. 
Jupiter will be visible throughout the evening hours near the star Eta Cemi- 
norum. In conjunction with the moon on the evening of April 18. 
5 /rr^r may be abundant on the night of April 21. Their flight will 
be directed from a radiant point situated a few degrees South-west of the star 
Vega in the constellation Lyra. 
W. E. D. 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Muho's Letters to Gilbert White. Edited, with an introduction, by Rashleigh 
Holt White. 6 inches x 9 inches. 362 pages. R. H. Porter. Price 
7s. 6d. net. 
These are letters written to Gilbert White by his life-long friend, the Rev. 
John MuLso, and they aflbrd us, as Mr. Rashleigh Holt White says in his intro- 
duction, “Almost the only contemporary estimate of the naturalist’s character.” 
Judged, however, from a purely unbiassed standpoint, these letters must command 
attention, and even to tho.se (and there must be few now) to whom their recipient 
is unknown, they will prove of no small interest. They pr.actically tell the life- 
story of a clever, or we might say brilliant, clergyman of the eighteenth century. 
His hopes and fears, his family relations, his preferments, are discu.ssed, as are 
his amusements, his ailments even, at a time when facilities for travel and con- 
ditions generally were very different from what they are now. To lovers of 
Gilbert White, the allusions to his char.icter and movements will have a special 
attractiveness. It was to Mulso’s sister (afterwards Mrs. Chapone) that Gilbert 
