58 
NATURE NOTES 
shrieks at an earwig and takes to the table-top when mouse or beetle claims the 
floor.” 
The Semitic Series. Babylonians and Assyrians : Life and Customs. By the 
Rev. Professor A. H. Sayce. John C. Nimmo. Price 5s. net. 
Though outside the field of this magazine, we feel sure that many of our 
readers, including those who recently heard a lecture on “ Man’s first Contact with 
Nature,” will be glad to have from the pen of an expert such as Professor Sayce 
a handy summary of recent researches into the most ancient of all civilisations. 
Received : — The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: 
Thirty-fourth Ansiual Report ; Knowledge, Science Gossip, The Naturalist, The 
Irish Naturalist, Humanity, The Animal World, The Animals' Friend, Our 
Animal Friends, and Agricultural Economist for February. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Hedgehogs. — I have read with interest the paper on “ Two Hedgehogs and 
their Ways,” appearing on page 31 of the February number of Nature Notes. 
Some three or four years ago a friend gave me a hedgehog, which I placed in the 
garden : in a very short time he became quite friendly and would come, when I 
called him, by a soft sound of whistling. He would readily eat out of my hand, 
and every evening came to the kitchen door to be fed, and would knock on it 
with his feet until it was opened. Strangers, however, he objected to, and would 
immediately roll himself up into a ball if they ventured to touch him. I am 
sorry to say that my little friend is dead, the gardener, who did not know where 
his nest was, covered it with a load of soil : we dug him out, but he was stiff 
and cold. 
Westcotes Drive, Leicester. Isabel W. Read. 
I-ebruary 7, 1900. 
Coneys.— In Gasquet’s “ Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries,” vol. 
ii., p. 1S8, is the following : — “ There is, says a document of the time, a warren 
of coneys upon the sea banks there (near Furness Abbey) and is worth to be let 
to farm, 13s.” What were the animals? Not surely the coneys we read of in 
Palestine and other Eastern countries ! 
E. L. 
[“ Coneys” was, and is, a common name for rabbits ; but the coney of Syria, 
Hyrax syriacus, is an altogether different, though externally somewhat similar, 
animal.- — E d. N.N.~\ 
Skua Gulls. — When living on the South Coast some years ago, I kept a 
pair of skua gulls which were allowed full range of the garden and the moats 
that were full of trout, the feathers of one wing being clipped to stop their flight. 
I knew my trout were far too sharp to suffer any injury from them, and had no 
hesitation in giving them free access to the water. They eat anything, from 
scraps off the plates to earth worms, and were quite delighted with a blind worm 
as a relisher. A dead rat they swallowed whole. 1 once threw a lively half- 
pound eel on the lawn to see how they would tackle it. The eel soon disap- 
peared down one of their throats ; but, not feeling comfortable, managed to get its 
tail out of the bird’s mouth and wriggled once more into daylight. It was then 
seized by the other bird and I saw it no more. These gulls were rather exacting 
in the amount of food they required, and were not conducive to the neatness of 
the turf at the water’s edge. I was not sorry when they found their way to the 
sea close by, where no doubt they lived happily ever afterwards. 
Market Weston, Thetford. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Insects and Spiders. — In spite of the numerous works describing the 
species and habits of insects, I do not know of any good practical book which 
