96 
NATURE NOTES 
kind without a supply of water always at hand. A pet lizard {Lacerta viridis) 
which I have now had for several years delights in a bath in the hot sun. 
Knots. 
London Birds, 1898. — The Battersea Park song thrushes were apparently 
a little ahead of their Kensington neighbours, which, Mr. Macpherson remarks, 
did not sing until January 5, for walking through the park on January 2 I heard 
several in good song : the missel thrush, however, I did not hear until the 23rd of 
the same month. Every year a few of the black-headed gulls on the river 
assume the brown hood weeks in advance of their fellows, and these, too, are 
not invariably old birds, but sometimes birds of the previous year. I noted one 
on January 15 which, so far as could be seen with a good field glass, appeared to 
be in perfect summer plumage. 
Passing along the Kensington Park Road on the morning of March 31, I 
noticed a crowd of people outside the railings of a front garden, and hearing 
frantic chirpings I pushed my way through, and found the attraction to be one 
of the most determined bird fights I have ever witnessed. Two cock sparrows 
were fighting fiercely, not in the usual way, here, there, and everywhere, over 
half an acre of ground, but locked together more after the style of two trained 
bulldogs than anything else. The stronger bird had forced his opponent on to 
his back, and was holding him tenaciously by the throat, taking little notice of 
the interested crowd. For nearly three minutes by my watch the pair were 
interlocked, each wrestling for the mastery, but just as I thought the undermost 
bird, from his feeble chirps, must be getting somewhere nearly choked, the victor 
suddenly released his hold, and both flew away apparently little the worse. 
Battersea Park, last year, bred two curiously marked blackbirds, one heavily 
splashed about the head, neck, and shoulders ; but the other, a very handsome 
bird, was pure white, with the exception of just one black feather in its tail. 
Should this latter bird survive another month it will be interesting to see whether 
this natural-coloured feather will be reproduced as before, or give place to a 
white one. 
A pair of moorhens at the Dell in Hyde Park built a nest on the water, 
quite away from the bank, among the lilies, but partly supported by, and 
anchored to, the sticks placed among the latter to keep the ducks away. They 
successfully hatched out a brood of seven from this nest, although the sitting 
birds were in full view of the public throughout the day. A pair of wood-pigeons 
were building in this vicinity as early as March 13. 
The common wren was not very plentiful in Battersea Park during 1898, but 
I heard it singing there on several occasions in the month of April. The reed- 
warbler, however, is a very regular summer visitor, and several pairs nested in the 
park as usual ; fully fledged young were being fed by their parents on July 8. 
By the middle of August, presumably having finished breeding operations, 
a few gulls began to appear on the river again, increasing in numbers as the 
season advanced. On August 14, and subsequent dates, until October 23, I saw 
a linnet by the river bank : to all appearances this was the same bird, but of 
course it was impossible to make certain. Although but a few pairs of lesser 
grebes appear annually in St. James’ Park, I was able by September 4 to count 
upwards of sixteen on the water, and there were probably others which escaped 
my notice at the time. These all left the park for the winter, but I noticed one 
or two until well into December. 
Meadow pipits were feeding by the edge of the Battersea reservoir on Septem- 
ber 25, and on October 9, a pair of goldcrcsts in company with blue and cole tits 
were busy inside the park. The goldcresl is not common in our London parks, 
but it can be found at any time about the woods and cop))ice of Wimbledon 
Common just a few miles to the south-west. 
The strange behaviour of a small flock of starlings crossing and recrossing 
the river, caught my attention while walking along the Chelsea Embankment on 
November 27, and looking at them more closely I found they were dipping down 
to the water and feeding from the surface, exactly as the gulls all around them 
were doing. In a footnote to a short account of this occurrence that appeared in 
the Field January 14, 1899, the editor remarks that this curious arjuatic trait 
was observed some years before in the same locality. As an instance of the 
