NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
197 
soon afterwards seeking admission to my father-in-law's rooms at Cambridge. 
Sagacious, to say the least of it ; but how did he find his way, as he liad never 
been that road before e.\cept in the boot of the coach ? 
“Now let me tell the story of a St. Bernard. I am staying at the Hotel 
des Trois Couronnes at ^'evey, on the Lake of Geneva. On July 19, two gentle- 
men came to this hotel, and in the evening we had an excitement over the 
arrival by the late boat of a St. Bernard, named Bari, belonging to one of them. 
His master had come by an earlier boat from the Hotel National at (jeneva, but 
as Bari had gone to bathe he was obliged to come later. He is a beauty, with 
such a head, and such a lovely smile. I may also mention that he is a grandson 
of the great Bari, who saved so many lives near the Hospice of the Great .St. 
Bernard. Little did I think on first acquaintance that very soon young Bari’s 
faculties would be put to the test. 
“On Saturday last, July 22, Bari’s master went to Ouchy, the port of 
Lausanne, by the ,V 30 p.m. boat from here, and Bari was left on the landing- 
stage in charge of a man. He struggled to get loose, and the last thing his 
master saw was the dog free. In the evening when his master came back from 
Ouchy, Bari was nowhere to be found. The matter was put into the hands of 
the police, and a visit paid to the railway station, and it was found that Bari had 
been there in the course of the afternoon. Now' mark the sequel. 
“ Having searched Vevey over for his master, Bari went on board the steamer 
at 6.55, and in it went to Ouchy. He searched the hotel there, where his master 
had been staying, and then went up to Lausanne, where he had also stayed, and 
in Lausanne he was seen by a boy, who knew him, and tried to catch him. On 
.Sunday, July 23, a telegram came here from the Hotel National at Geneva, to 
say that Bari had arrived there, and was safe at the place he came from last week. 
How did he get to Geneva ? He went on the 4.50 p.m. boat from Ouchy to 
Geneva, and when he saw the Hotel National from the steamer he jumped over- 
board and swam ashore. This is proved by the utter state of collapse in which 
the poor thing arrived; almost drowned. I believe the distance he swam was 
nearly a mile, for the steamer runs far away from the hotel when making for the 
harbour at Geneva. 
“ Such is the marvellous story of Bari’s search for his master. Not often does 
a story like this come under one’s own ken. It must interest many. I can only 
feel, and others must with me, what marvellous power God has given to what we 
call the lower grade of creation, ‘ the brute.’ \Vbat love, what aftection, what 
sagacity, what perseverance ! Is man up to .such a mark always ? 
“ P.S. — I may mention that Vevey is some fifty miles from Geneva, so Bari 
hunted over three towns, travelled by two steamers, and swam a very long 
distance, alone and fasting. No wonder he collapsed, but at last he reached the 
Hotel National where his master had stayed for some time, and threw himself at 
the feet of a boy who had had care of him.” 
Moles. — Moles are far too common in this highly preserved district, where 
amongst their other enemies foxes and weasels are rare. Farmers do not take 
the trouble to keep them in check ; and the old-fashioned mole-catcher is well 
nigh extinct. This dry season, however, has already decimated their ranks. 
Not being able to find sufficient food in the parched fields, they frequent the sides 
of ditches and such like places. There is a lane here the banks of which seem to 
be the mole’s dernier ressort, where I have seen them lying dead in numbers. 
The love of my garden militates somewhat against any regard for the mole’s good 
qualities ; for a more troublesome creature among our pet plants, or one harder to 
get rid of, I do not know. A trap is almost useless in deeply trenched ground 
when the earth is dry. If a mole once springs a trap he will not enter it a second 
time. Ed.mund Thos. Daubeny. 
Market Weston Rectory, Thetford, Norfolk, August 16, 1899. 
Birds Singing at Night. — In reply to “ Lucy Rowlatt ” on page 179, I 
cannot make it out by the description of a “ short but sweet song.” The birds 
which most frequently sing at night here are the nightingales, sedge warblers, 
hedge-accentors, cuckoos, sometimes an occasional thrush, and at dawn, swallows, 
skylarks and robins in rotation. 
The Wren’s Nest, Astwood Bank. J. HiAM. 
Cuckoos. — Those readers who have taken an interest in the so-called cuckoo 
“myth,” and may not have seen Feathered World for the past few weeks, 
