156 
NATURE NOTES 
requisite and accordant with their rights, subject to a most 
desirable law for the prevention of methods of killing which 
involve needless pain or cruelty, putting wild animals under the 
protection of the law which now protects the domesticated. 
The absolute protection of song-birds and those which, without 
being noxious, are ornamental, at all seasons and everywhere 
in the kingdom, is a measure in the interest of society at large, 
and should not depend on a sanctuary or the will of the owners 
of the land, and is not a matter which should be complicated 
by any connection with the subject of this note. The limitation 
of any law regarding the protection of animal life to the public 
domain ought to secure the neutrality, if not the adhesion, of 
estate owners and make the passage of the law easy. But to 
get anything of what we desire it is necessary that the societies 
act together and at once. 
The law establishing the sanctuary should also forbid the 
gathering of any product of the land which constitutes the food 
of the animals, such as the pine cones, which are the chief food 
of the squirrels, or fruits of any kind, nuts, &c., &c. The 
general question of the extension of the law for the prevention 
of cruelty to animals to wild animals is a separate one, which 
ought to stand on its own merits and it comes under the care 
of the R.S.P.C., whose Hon. Secretary has shown his sense of 
its importance ; so that the question of sanctuary, as one which 
comes peculiarly within the scope of the Selborne Society, 
should not be confounded with other questions in our action. 
“ Who embraces too much holds nothing.” 
W. J. Stii.lman. 
Condercum, W. Bournemouth. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Strange Foster-parents. — 'I he Herlin correspomlent of the Standard 
reports a curious case of adoption by a pair of cats, a tortoise-shell and a 
white one, owned by a family in Berlin. They had been brought up by the 
children to be so tame as to live on the most friendly terms with the dog, 
and the fowls, and other pets. Nevertheless, much surprise was caused by the 
news that the white cat had adopted seven chickens which had been deserted 
by their mother. She went to the basket where they lay, covered them over, 
and kept them warm under her soft fur. The tortoiseshell cat, too, after 
watching the white one for some time, ended by al.so sitting in the ba.sket and 
helping to keep the chickens warm. The action of the white cat can be 
explained to a certain degree by the fact that she had had three kittens a 
fortnight before, which were taken away from her. 
Conversely, in June, a local newspaper mentions that at Hawes, in 
Wensleydale, a hen has voluntarily taken charge of a family of kittens, and 
covers them during the absence of their mother. When the cat comes to 
provide her young with their natural nourishment, the hen steps aside for awhile, 
but returns to her place again whenever the cat leaves them. 
Mole. — A cat, belonging to a neighbour, having seized a young mole, the 
creature bit her through the upper lip, and hung on, in spite of the cat’s frantic 
