NATURE NOTES. 
1 16 
below Medmenham Abbey. My impression is that they are more plentiful than 
they were some years ago, when the home of my boyhood was in those lovely 
scenes. A. C. Almack. 
The Vicarage, Bowes Park, N. 
Notes from West Sussex. —A few words from West Sussex, the home of 
the Richard Jefferies branch, may not be unwelcome as additional proof of the 
unusual earliness of dates, which all Selbornians must have enjoyed chronicling 
in their spring notes this year. 
With us Banksia roses were out in March, and the wistaria on a south wall 
profusely blooming by Easter Day (April 2nd). I picked cowslips and bluebells 
on April 8th; they were then “in prosperity” (as our country phrase is), and 
almost over by .May-day. The young thrushes were out and about by Easter, 
and the wryneck arrived three weeks before his time. 
I append a list of birds and plants whose dates I noticed (adding for com- 
parison the dates recorded in the Naturalists’ Diary). By very small observation 
one may easily obtain interesting results. 
April lo. Lords and Ladies (Artun maculatum). (April 22.) 
13. Wild cherry. (April 18.) 
,, Wood spurge. (April 25.) j 
17. May-blossom (garden). (May 13.) 
18. Early purple orchis. (April 22.) 
21. Woodruff (garden). (May 3.) 
24. Laburnum (garden). (May 14.) 
26. Wood sanicle. (May 12.) 
27. Guelder rose (garden). (June 5.) 
29. White campion. (May 20. ) 
April 9. Nightingale first heard. (April 24.) 
10. Saw swallow. (March 23.) 
12. Heard wryneck. (May l.) 
13. Saw whitethroat. (April 13.) 
16. Heard cuckoo. (April 2.) 
19. Heard nightingale. (April 24.) 
May 3. Saw house-martin. (March 22.) 
Rustington, near Worthing, Sussex. 
Hilda Urlin. 
Birds at Sevenoaks. — It may interest your readers to know that I saw a 
pair of swifts on April 21st this year ; I have never before known them to arrive 
before the 28th of April, and gener.ally it is May ere they come, often as late as 
the 4th or 5th. The nightingale sang in my garden strongly on the 19th of April. 
,\nd now I have to add another curious fact. Although the swifts have come I 
have not seen either a swallow or a martin. Thrushes are plentiful, but the 
blackbird for some cause is somewhat scarce. Robins had a second nest here on 
the 5th of April. I hope that your readers have put out pans of water for the birds 
this very dry time ; I have three, and they are much resorted to. The sparrows 
are a sore pest this year, eating off my primroses, &c. , and they drive off my other 
birds. There are several tame Barbary doves flying about here, and the sparrows 
attack even these. I think the tits are among the best friends the gardener has. 
They seek for, find, and destroy so much insect lifb in the ova state. 
Harrison Weir. 
A Stray Pigeon.— Early in the month of February, 1892, a pigeon was 
observed flying about the back of my house, not going away, but occasionally 
alighting on the roof of the next house. At length he perched on the ledge of 
the upstair window, and continued thus flitting to and fro for more than two 
hours. This was in the afternoon. At last he flew against the window of our 
back parlour, as if trying to come in ; and watching him closely I observed that 
ha appeared to be in a very exhausted state. Thereupon I opened one of the 
upstair windows, and waited awhile, and on his again perching on the window- 
ledge I quietly went towards him and put my hand gently upon him. He let me 
do so without making any resistance — perhaps being unable to make any — and 
I took him in and held him in my hands until I could obtain some proper food 
for him, and a cage to put him in. He took the food eageily, being evidently in 
