NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
1/ 
in Lake Nyasa,” reprinted from the journals of the Manchester and Scottish 
Geographical Societies, which describes its geology, flora and fauna. The work 
is illustrated by an excellent portrait and a map of Eastern Central Africa, and 
has a serviceable index. The zoological references have been checked by com- 
petent hands, but “ Possibly Acanthacen Barkria” is a queer way of speaking of 
a plant. 
Received. — Board of AgricuUure Leaflets: No. 57, External Parasites of 
Poultry ; No. 58, Internal Parasites of Poultry ; The Victorian Naturalist, for 
October and November, 1899; Science- Gossip, Animal World, The Animals’ 
Friend, Our Animal Friends, Humanity, The Naturalist, The Irish Naturalist, 
and The Agricultural Economist, for December, 1899; and The Sixth Annual 
Report of the Hastings and St. Leonards N'atural Hidory Society. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Field Mice and Eggs. — I am able to a certain extent to answer a ques- 
tion of mine in a previous number about the egg-stealing propensities of field 
mice. The tastes of the Muridte are many and various : they are all more or less 
carnivorous, and cannibalistic too. A gamekeeper near here tells me the long- 
tailed field mouse often robs “oven'’ nests, i.e., those of such birds as the 
chifi'-chaff and willow-wren. 
Market Weston, Thetjord, Edmund Thomas Daubenv. 
October, 1899. 
Starlings. — Mr. Tuck’s note on starlings taking possession of the nesting- 
hole of the green woodpecker is of much interest to me, as 1 have found they do 
the same thing here by various hole-breeding birds, such as titmice and pied fly- 
catchers. The latter beautiful little bird in particular suffers a good deal from 
this cause. On April 27 last 1 was sorry to notice that a certain woodland haunt 
of the flycatcher where a few years back it brooded in some numbers, was literally 
possessed by starlings, that flew about the ancient trees, sang their comic phrases, 
squabbled, and chased each other for nest materials. The starling can imitate 
the alarm cry of the pied flycatcher exactly. I have heard it do so close to the 
hole which it had turned the little bird from, thus adding to the part of robber 
that of mocker. 
I should like to say that goldfinches are reported to have diminished in the 
districts north of Lakes Windermere and Esthwaite. In a residence of eleven 
years I have never seen one, yet old inhabitants profess they were fairly numerous, 
and that bird-catchers came to particular fields to snare them. Nor is the land 
in greater cultivation than it was. 
Mary L. Armitt. 
Goldlinches and Kingfishers.— As far as my observation goes there is 
no danger of the goldfinch, or indeed any other finch, being exterminated here- 
abouts, owing, amongst other causes, to the protection of game. An estate that 
preserves partridges and pheasants preserves almost all other birds, especially 
during nesting time. I see goldfinches frequently, both singly and in flocks, and 
they breed in the trees on the lawn. I fancy they must often escape notice, as it 
is not everybody who can recognise them, unless quite close, and w'hen their cry 
is known ; and many so-called observers have very feeble eyes and ears, as I can 
testify. Not long ago a friend was making enquiries about hawfinches of a 
neighbour who imagined he knew something about birds, and was told that they 
were rarely, if ever, to be seen in these parts. And yet I set eyes on them a 
hundred times a year : they are frequently to be noticed in the trees round that 
neighbour’s house, and I feel almost sure, nest there. 
Kingfishers have a long lease yet. Here, like kestrels and owls, the law 
protects them all the year round. They turn up in odd places nearly all over 
this locality. In this village there are some twenty “pits,” i.e., small deep ponds 
that were made in excavating clay to put on the land, a practice that has fallen 
into disuse. Kingfishers traffic backwards and forwards to these ponds even in 
