NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
97 
A great many kinds of insects prey upon our peat and apple trees, and to these 
birds should be allowed free access. 
South-acre, Swaffham. Edmund Tiios. Daubeny. 
480. Finches and Scotch Firs.— One afternoon at the end of March 
I saw the following finches all engaged at the same time in feeding on the seeds 
in the cones of a Scotch Fir in my garden : — Common Crossbill, Sparrow, Gold- 
finch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch. 
South-acre, Swaffham. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
487. Little Owl. — A friend writes to me from the neighbourhood of 
Thetford to say : “ I had a stroke of luck the other day — on some elder bushes 
I saw a Little Owl hanging, which had been dead a day, and luckily was dry, so 
I sent it off to the stutTers. I do not know who the idiot was who killed it, and 
regret its death, but am glad its corpse was not altogether wasted.” These birds 
have been seen by several persons in this locality. One of the keepers informed 
me he had just seen a pair in a copse close here. On my expressing a hope that 
he had not shot them, he replied that he “did not kill those kinds of birds." 
The education of that bullet-headed race of mankind is beginning to look up. 
South-acre, Swaffham. Ed.mund Tiios. Daubeny. 
488. The Fairy Martins. — The last sentence of the penultimate para- 
graph of Mr. Dove’s letter on p. 4 is a good instance of the tendency among 
human beings to attribute human reasoning powers and motives to the lower 
orders of creation. As a matter of fact, the placing of their nests in the most 
inaccessible positions by the birds in question is not by any means a proof of their 
possessing any reasoning power, because the same result could have been achieved 
in the ordinary course of nature by the process called “ natural selection.” When 
the birds first commenced to build their nests on the cliff, those which happened 
to choose the positions of greatest safety would be most successful in surviving and 
rearing their young. They would most likely choose similar positions every time, 
and their descendants would have an inherited tendency to do so; hence, in time, 
a race would be developed which built nests only in the best protected places 
without any help from reasoning powers at all. 
Hale End, Chingford. C. NTciiolson. 
489. Plant Freaka. — With regard to plant-freaks, I think the most extra- 
ordinary I have ever seen was that of the common daisy {^Beilis perennis). I 
have not the plant by me now. but I will give you as short and as accurate a 
description of it as possible. The plant was a small one, but it had one flower- 
stalk about 8 inches long, and on the top of this was the flower. This 
curious structure was like the usual flower in shape, but the ray-florets had 
apparently been mostly used to form ten little stalks about ij inches long, and 
bearing on the top a minute daisy flower certainly not mote than inch in 
diameter. 
O. C. SiLVERLOCK. 
SELBORNE SOCIETY NOTICES. 
[Note. — All Announcements with regard to Future Meetings ok 
THE Central Society or Branches will be found together at the 
END OF THESE NOTICES.] 
Special General Meeting. — .At a Special General Meeting held on 
April 23, the suggestions made by the Council in connection with the revision of 
the Rules were adopted. The procedure at the Annual General Meeting has 
been modified, and it has been decided that the names of those recommended by 
the Council for election as President, Trustees, Vice-Presidents, and Councillors 
must now be announced in Nature Notes, and a list of them will be found 
under the heading of “ Annual Meeting ” at the end of the Magazine. 
All new members must now be elected by the Council after nomination by 
two members. 
New Members. — Central Society .- — The following members stand for 
election Henry Austin, Esq. ; Mrs. Ball ; Mrs. Bramwell ; R. Miller Christy, 
