NATURE NOTES 
152 
513. A Kestrel at Close Quarters. — A somewhat similar thing to that 
mentioned ^n the June Nature Notes, happened at a window in our house a 
few years since. A sudden crash of glass into the room where we were sitting 
startled us, and on going to the window, even with the ground, we found a 
sparrow-hawk with wings outstretched lying on the tiles in front of it ; one of 
us went outside, and immediately the bird flew up, releasing as it did so a 
sparrow ; the latter flew off to the shrubbery and the hawk to the rookery near. 
Doubtless the bird mentioned by E. A. Bedford was a sparrow-hawk and not 
a kestrel, a bird which would scarcely venture so near a dwelling. 
Teignniouth. Caroline E. Harley. 
514. Bird Instinct. — I had a very interesting example of bird instinct 
this voyage. Some swallows came on board crossing the Bay, and I managed to 
drive them into my room to keep them from being devoured by our cats. In the 
morning they quietly flew out when I opened the wire door. That evening they 
roosted again in my room, but the next morning were vastly excited, flying about 
the room, twittering loudly. As soon as I opened the door out they went, and 
made a bee line for the land. Finisterre was nearest, about no miles off, and 
they went in that direction and I saw them no more. Now, how did they know 
where it was from my dimly lighted room ? The blinds were down so they 
could not see out, but they knew right enough. 
515. Common Wrens. — A correspondent in the July number remarks 
on the singular absence of common wrens this spring. This is equally noticeable 
in many parls of the North of England, especially one place where they are usually 
very abundant, but this year a whole week may elapse without their song being 
heard. 
Pied flycatchers, on the other hand, have been unusually numerous in some 
of the localities they frequent. The writer came upon no less than .>.ix pairs in 
the course of an afternoon’s walk of a mile and a half in May, and as they were 
seen or heard about the same spot on the return journey, it is reasonable to 
suppose they were nesting in the immediate neighbourhood. Directly the young 
leave the nest, however, both old and young disappear and are no more seen. 
What then becomes of them ? The spotted flycatcher remains through the 
summer. W. 
516. Nature’s Surgery. — One of my thrushes had its leg torn off by, 
I presume, a cat, which could get on the top of the cage and pass its paw through 
the wires (which are wide apart) and reach the bird. It must have been done one 
night, for in the morning I noticed feathers about, but the bird was hopping about 
on one leg as if nothing had happened. I killed it in the evening and found the 
limb gone, the feathers and blood had formed a complete binding to the wound, 
and no doubt in time all would have been right. JOHN ACUTT. 
517. In November of last year I noticed a rook with its left leg broken and 
dangling from its body. Since then and almost daily up to the present time 
I have seen that same rook, and it is still in the same condition as when I first 
saw it. So this poor bird has managed to exist and support the weight of its 
body for at least six months on one leg, and seems able to take pretty good care 
of itself. I have noticed when alighting on the ground or on a tree it gets no 
relief whatever from the broken leg, which is still absolutely useless. 
27, Hampstead Road, Brighton, John Horne. 
Jitney , 1907. 
518. Pythons. Tt is refreshing to see the way the discussion is tending 
with regard to the stretching powers of the gullet of the largest snakes. First it 
was a tiger that could be swallowed. Then it dwindled down to a leopard. 
After this Mr. Nicholson whittled it down to “ one of the smaller cats,” perhaps 
a tiger cat ; which is not too large to be swallowed by a good sized python. I 
am glad to see my son’s experiences of snakes in Burma related in your pages. 
He takes rather a lofty view of a snake’s powers when he tells us he would back 
a python to master a tiger in mortal combat, and that “it would break nearly 
every bone in the body of even so large an animal as a tiger.” An elephant 
might perform such a feat by jumping for an hour upon a tiger’s body after the 
