56 
NATURE NOTES. 
prise I found several new swallows’ nests built along the roof-beams. They were 
freshly and beautifully feathered, and one of them contained the hrst egg, which 
I need hardly say I left undisturbed. On referring to my Natural History of 
Selborne, I found that in White’s Calendar, March 26th is given as the earliest 
date for the swallow’s appearance, and in Markwick’s April 7th. The St. Erney 
birds must have been in Cornwall considerably before the 23rd February in order 
to have had sufficient time to build and feather their nests and commence the 
•duties of laying. Herbert W. Macklin. 
St. Ives , Cornwall. 
Destruction of Squirrels in the New Forest. -The Southampton 
and New Forest Branch of the Selborne Society having had their attention called 
to this matter have made enquiries on the subject, and regret to find that many of 
these extremely graceful animals are annually destroyed through, too often, 
wanton cruelty by the lads and young men of the neighbourhood. Incredible as 
it may seem to many of our readers, some of the labouring class of the New 
Forest use them as an article of food, but generally they are victims to that 
senseless love of killing which is wrongly named sport. Mr. Ward Jackson, of 
Lyndhurst, writing on this subject says : “ Though large numbers of them have 
been destroyed they are yet by no means extinct. Opinions are divided as to the 
.amount of damage done to young trees by them. It is possible they are credited 
with more than really is their due. The foresters do kill a great number of them 
and use them for food.” Doctor Lawson Tait, who lives opposite to an enclosure, 
writes : “ We have at least thirty nests this year and they do no harm at all. I 
have not seen a single tooth mark on a tree or any indication of injury of anything 
by them, and I am quite sure I have now a bigger squirrel population (on my 
private grounds) than exists elsewhere in the Forest.” The Rev. A. R. Miles 
says : “ They are still fairly numerous in and round the Forest, although they 
suffer from unnecessary destruction by gangs of young men who, especially on 
Sundays and holidays, roam about the Forest with sticks loaded at the end with a 
ball of lead, with which they murder these charming little animals.” We hear 
that the officials of the Forest are likely to use their authority on behalf of the 
squirrels’ interest. 
Seal Fishing in Pribilov Islands. —I think your correspondent is in 
error respecting the seal fur trade as carried on in these Islands. No cruelty is 
practised, except by killing, and that is far less than that to which our poor 
domestic animals are subject. No adult male seal is killed, no female of any 
age, no calf under a year old. 
The young males congregate in large numbers together, sleeping on the 
Islands, and the slaughterers get quietly between a herd and the sea, and drive 
them gently out of sight of the other seals, some distance inland, where they are 
instantly killed by a blow on the head with a club. Great care is taken not to 
frighten the seals. They do not breed till they are six years old, and as at that 
age the males become quarrelsome, and collect together a harem of from fifteen 
to twenty cows each, the killing of the surplus before they begin to fight is a 
benefit to the community. The young are born on the Islands, and are unable 
to swim until they are two months old; the mothers have to go long distances 
from the Islands in search of fish for food — it is then, if ships are allowed to 
catch them, the poor calves are starved. 
The skins taken on the Islands are those of the young males between the 
ages of two and five. Their flesh forms the principal food of the Islanders. I 
believe you will find this account entirely correct. It is a great pity that fishing 
for fur seals should be allowed from ships ; it has already destroyed nearly all 
except those preserved and protected in the Behring Sea. 
Fordington , Dorchester. M. A. Hayne ./ 
[The views of this correspondent are borne out by an article in this month's 
Murray's Magazine; but there is, unfortunately, much evidence on the other 
side.] 
Sanitary Swifts. — Mr. Aubrey Edwards, in his interesting notes on the 
Orleton Swifts, mentions the curious fact that the parent birds swallow the faeces 
of the young. This is for the purpose of keeping the nest clean, but I have 
noticed more than once something falling from the bird when leaving the nest 
