2I8 
NATURE NOTES. 
vitude to place or set any spring gun, man trap, or other engine calculated to 
destroy human life or inflict grievous bodily harm, with intent that the same may 
destroy or inflict grievous harm upon a trespasser or other person coming in con- 
tact therewith. The same section which prescribes this penalty provides, however, 
that it is lawful to set a trap for the purpose of destroying vermin. If a pedestrian 
were injured by a vermin trap it is conceivable that a nice point of law might 
arise. But is ' barbed wire ’ one of the ‘ other engines ’ declared to be illegal ? 
Mr. F. \V. Ashley, writing in Nature Notes, thinks not, but Mr. R. F. Mac- 
Millan points out that it has been held in several County Court cases that a land- 
owner who fences his land adjoining a highway or public footpath with barbed 
wire placed in such a position as to inconvenience the public creates a nuisance, 
and renders himself liable to damages for injuries caused by it. A little more 
generosity on the part of the landowner and a little consideration on the part of 
wayfarers would solve a problem which at present causes friction and ill-feeling.” 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Mountain Ash Berries. — There are some mountain ash trees in a garden 
in this village, which always have a plentiful crop of rich-coloured berries, which 
some time in the latter part of August mysteriously vanish in a single night, leaving 
no trace whatever of depredators. This occurs annually — it is thought that the 
robbers must be some large flight of birds, especially as having made a closer 
inspection this year, we find that only the berries are gone, leaving the cluster of 
little stalks still on the trees. What birds do you think they would be? 
Seeud, Mel/isham. E. M. S. 
Wild Rabbit tamed. — While living at Garrick Castle, Loch Goil, this sum- 
mer, I observed the very interesting, and, as far as I know, singular case of a wild 
ral)bit living in an almost tame condition. Mrs. Paul, a fisherman’s wife, living 
in a hut between Ardnahein Farm and the mouth of the Loch, deserves the credit 
of the kindness which brought this to pass. The rabbit had been brought in 
when very young by the cat, and reared by Mrs. Paul, from whose hand it still 
feeds. It now spends part of its time in the woods — where the ribbon round its 
neck must astonish its friends — and part on the low sloping roof of the hut among 
the pigeons, or at the door among the fowls. It seemed shy in the presence of 
strangers, but quite friendly and confident in the fisherman’s wife, who, though 
she has never heard of the Selborne Society, is by nature fitted to adorn it. 
Helen J. Murray. 
A Pyramid Snail (p. 179.) — Some few months ago I had three or four 
living specimens of this mollusc given to me, and as I had been successful in 
rearing and breeding some British land shells, I thought I would try these under 
artificial conditions. I therefore procured a gardener’s propagating glass, and 
a flower pot filled with fine sand and some siiiall pieces of chalk. I put the 
molluscs on the sand and covered over with the bell-glass and placed them in the 
kitchen window, and, like Caleb Plummer when he painted his toy horses, I 
made my pot of sand and its surrounding condition as like Egypt as I could 
for sixpence. When this was done I thought about the food, and here came the 
difficulty. I tried them with cabbage, lettuce, bean-leaves, onions, banana, cocoa- 
nut and other things, but nothing would they eat except a little nibble at the 
cocoa-nut and the banana. I ultimately had to give up the experiment of breeding 
them. I noticed one morning that during the night one of the snails had made 
a hole in the sand, about an inch in depth and about f inch in diameter. It 
may have been trying to lay eggs, or searching for some food that might be found 
under the sand in the desert (perhaps the larva of the .Scarab beetle). It would 
be interesting if any of your readers could tell us something more about this desert 
snail {Helix desertoriim) and what are the plants which grow in its habitat about 
the rocks and sands of the Pyramid. 
T. Rogers. 
