NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
39 
called, run about over one’s dress and hunt pockets for oats or other delicacies. 
They were very fond of bits of apple. All through the autumn and early winter 
they prospered, and I have often seen their mistress sitting on the ground with the 
rabbits running about her knees, the colley sitting behind her looking on, and a 
robin taking part in the picture, sitting on the top of the rabbit’s coop and on 
the look-out for bits. It is sad to have to say that these most interesting tame 
wild rabbits met their death from a neighbour’s dog who came marauding one 
day, as the two bunnies did not recognise that he was an enemy, and so were 
killed. I can also remember a tame wild rabbit that lived in a fishmonger’s shop 
near Chesham Place in 1879. The rabbit used to be quite loose in the shop, 
hopping about at his ease. At times he would lie asleep on the doorstep or in 
the entrance to the shop. I was told at the time that this rabbit had come 
into the hands of the owners among a lot of rabbits sent up after some big shoot 
in the country. Among all the dead ones he had been found alive, and had 
been nursed back to health and happiness. 
C. E. Meade Waldo. 
In Nature Notes, January, 1900, p. 13, I see the suggestion that rabbits 
should not he lifted by their ears. Having kept various pets all my life, I think 
I have found that the best way to lift a rabbit or hare is by the ears, giving at 
the same time support with the free hand under the animal’s body. Cats and 
dogs I lift by the back of the neck, and then support them underneath in the 
same way. 
January 8, 1900. E. G. WoODD. 
Pet Guinea-Pigs. — When I was a boy my constant petition was for pets, 
and I had a great variety. Amongst them was a pair of guinea-pigs, which were, 
in summer, allowed the liberty of the fields, and in winter kept in the kitchen 
generally. As they are inveterate enemies of rat.s, with which we had some 
trouble, we put the guinea-pigs in the cellar, a large well-lighted and ventilated 
one, and they rapidly cleared the rats out. Finally, however, the male had a 
fight with a rat larger than himself, and though he killed the rat he was so 
bitten that we brought him and his mate back into the kitchen. He lingered for 
two or three days, but one night my father, who slept in a bedroom off the 
kitchen, was awakened by a wailing of the female guinea-pig, like, he said, the 
crying of a child, w'hich continued all night. In the morning we found the male 
dead, and his mate continued to bewail him, refusing to eat or drink until she, 
too, died. Nothing that we could do for her diverted her from her dead mate, 
and she died in two days of actual starvation surrounded by everything we could 
get to tempt her to eat. 
Deetdeue, Frimley Green, Surrey. W. G. S'l'lLLMAN. 
Januaty 6, 19CO. 
Signs of Spring. — Many people only expect and only find tokens of 
the advent of w'armer days in plant life. It is a joy to me to see them in living 
creatures too. For the last week or ten days the cock-blackbird has been 
gradually acquiring his orange-coloured bill, the yellow beginning to show first at 
the base. Now the starlings are following suite, and flurry about the lawn with 
undignified haste, probing the ground with their bright-coloured bills, which in 
some individuals are still horn-coloured at the point. 
E. G. WOODD. 
Hen-Harriers. — Hen. harriers at rare intervals visit a small pen half a mile 
below my house. Some time ago a male remained about here for eighteen 
months. I saw him frequently, but could never discover a mate. After an 
interval of five years another of these birds, a female, has appeared. She seems 
to be an unsophi.'-ticated member of her race, for she goes perilously near human 
dwellings, and 1 fear her career will he short. 
Market Weston, Thetford. Ed.mund Thos. Daubeny. 
Christmas, 1899. 
Gulls in London. — Can any reader give me any authentic information as 
to the following points : — (i) Have the black-headed gulls begun to roost and pass 
the night on or near the water in St. James’ Park, as I have seen and heard them 
in quantities there as late as 5 o’clock p.m., when it was almost dark ; and (2) 
