NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
175 
been, and I still am, a strong bird protectionist.” Vet he writes (giving reasons 
which it would take too much space to quote) : “ So far as agriculture, in its 
common-sense, is concerned (the production of corn, root, and green crops), the 
increase of the following species should be checked, and their present numbers 
reduced — rook, jackdaw, sparrow (the worst of all), starling, wood-pigeon (the 
large ring-dove only).” His concluding words are as follows ; “ I wish to 
emphasise these points : — 
(1) The increa.se in the number of some resident species. 
(2) The enormous increase of the starling, by leaps and bounds this last few 
years. 
(3) The change in the feeding habits of certain birds within the last few 
years. (Seven years ago I was not aware that the blackbird or starling touched a 
plum in my garden. Now fruit on trees in the open has to be gathered unripe, 
and . . it is sometimes all lost. The seed and sprouiing-corn eating 
habit of the starling is new.) 
(4) The effect on other species of the undue increase of certain species. I 
Ihink it is due to the starling that the nuthatch (a most useful bird) formerly 
common about this village [Bloxham, O.xon.], has almost disappeared. The 
starling usurps all kinds of breeding holes, turning the other birds out ; and I 
have known it turn out the nuthatch. [The nuthatch has become as scarce here 
as in Bloxham ; and I have also known it turned out by the starling from a tree 
close to my own garden.] 
“I have no doubt,” Mr. Aplin concludes, “(as a preserver of birds gener- 
ally) that the birds I have alluded to [these include the blue tit and bullfinch] 
should (in the interests of farmers, and of birds in general) be kept in check, and 
their present numbers reduced in some cases.” 
“ .As to means ” he says earlier in his letter, “ I can only suggest head money 
(to be paid out only by those competent to identify the heads) and the preserva- 
tion of the sparrow-hawk,” to which I would venture to add “and the kestrel.” 
I have done but scant justice to the case presented by Mr. Aplin ; but I need 
hardly say that he does not write as one ignorant of his subject, or as an advocate 
of indiscriminate destruction. 
W. seems to have some fear that the sparrow may be exterminated ; and 
I have seen a letter in a London newspaper suggesting that Kentish hop-growers, 
if they encourage sparrow-clubs, have only themselves to blame for the pre- 
valence of aphides in their hop-gardens. Certainly the notion that sparrows are 
scarce in Kent can hardly have come from any one knowing much of the county. 
We see far more than we like in our wheat-fields, and, I might add, in out 
house-martin’s nests. 
Otham Parsonage, F. M. MiLLARD. 
Maidslone. 
540. A Python’s Meals. — Perhaps the following extract from the 
Zoology Section of the Journal of *he Royal Microscopical Society for August, 
1907, may be of interest to some of our readers who are apparently incredulous 
as to the capability of pythons in the matter of swallowing : “ W. Hartmann 
(Zool., .Aneeig. xxxi., 1907, pp. 270-2) describes an astonishing sight which he saw 
in Hagenbeck’s Zoological Garden. A specimen of Python reticulata, about 
25 ft. in length, swallowed, on June 7, 1906, a swan weighing i8 lbs. and 
two days later a roebuck of 67 lbs. Another swallowed within two days two 
roebucks of 28 lbs. and 39 lbs., and soon thereafter a chamois of 71 lbs. In 
two and a half hours only the hind quarters and the limbs of the prey were 
visible. When a flashlight photograph was suddenly taken the python dis- 
gorged its booty in the space of half a minute.” “ A. Sokolowsky reports on the 
same subject (Tom. cit. pp. 293-6), in a few days a weight of 84 lbs. was 
swallowed ; 138 lbs. in nine days. The pharynx can be dilated to a width of 
I m. 40-45 cm. A goat of 84 lbs. in weight was engulfed and took nine days to 
digest. After a meal the pythons remain inert in the water. The appetite for 
a second meal a few days after the first is remarkable. On the other hand, two 
specimens remained from spring to November without eating at all, and yet 
persisted in good condition.” — Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, 1907, 
Part 4, p. 414.) 
