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NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Birds Singing at Night. — I beg to thank Mr. Gillman for reminding us 
of the woodlark as a night-singer. I find Gilbert White only mentions three, 
the nightingale, woodlark, and “less reed-sparrow,” no doubt the bird I know 
as the sedge-warbler. If we may call the note of the corn-crake “ singing,” of 
course they keep on most of the night in summer, and who can say they do not 
enjoy hearing their own voices as much as the nightingales or woodlarks. Wood- 
larks have become quite extinct in this locality for nearly forty years. About 
forty-five years ago they were fairly distributed, but from persistent catching, 
and being so jealous of a rival in the vicinity of their haunts, the catchers with 
cage-birds from Birmingham in spring cleared the district in the breeding seasons. 
There was an old German, named Martin, who was the chief cause of it, and 
I well remember he laid it to the severe winters of 1854 and ’5, when the Crimean 
war was going on. I wish these birds could be once more introduced, but am 
afraid they would soon be caught up. 
Astwood Bank. James HiAM. 
Bullfinches and Fruit-Buds. — Mr. James Hiam, in the October number 
of Nature Notes (p. 198), kindly refers to my letter respecting the damage done 
by birds to fruit-buds. I am astonished to hear that bullfinches have been so 
plentiful in his part of the country. In our garden and orchard a bullfinch is 
seldom seen, so that the damage done to our fruit-buds cannot be due to that 
species. The birds chiefly noticed here are chaffinches, greenfinches, tits, white- 
throats, linnets, and sparrows. The bullfinch is, I believe, a rare bird in most 
districts, and I am inclined to think that he often gets the credit of ravages 
inflicted in gardens where he does not exist. I shall be glad of any further infor- 
m.ation with regard to this matter of the fruit-buds from Mr. Hiam or others. 
Allow me also to say that I cannot approve of the trapping and caging of wild 
birds under any circumstances whatever ; a caged bird is to me a pitiable sight. 
October “Verax.” 
Woodpeckers. — Referring to Mr. Odell’s article, the woodpeckers will 
generally fiequent fine old trees — upwards of a century’s growth — such as are at 
“The Grove,” Stanmnre. In many cases the appearance of a fungus upon any 
tree is shortly followed by a boring by one of the woodpeckers, when the fungus 
falls off. The most usual trees are : — elm, ash, birch, beech, willow, alder, and 
white poplar, but I have from time to time noticed holes 'made in the oak, 
sycamore, plane, maple, Spanish chesnut, horse chesnut, Lombardy poplar, horn- 
beam, Scotch fir, silver fir, walnut, mulberry, ajrple, pear, cherry and holly. 
Picus minor ohctn nests very high up — fifty feet or more. This little bird is not 
usually observed : its spring cry re.sembles that of the kestrel. 
The great increase of starlings during the last few years, from the enormous 
foreign arrivals which in many cases stay to breed here, is very trying to the poor 
green woodpeckers, as their holes are generally pounced upon by the starlings, who 
watch their opportunity and carry in straws, which at once cause the wood- 
peckers to withdraw. A recent case in point came to my notice. The female 
bird, being ejected, laid an egg at the foot of the tree, and in twenty-foui hours 
the male excavated a fresh hole only three feet from the ground, and the brood 
came safely away. The starlings, in their turn, are turned out the following year 
by bats, with which no bird will live. 
The green woodpecker is one of the half-dozen birds which, it is said, never 
migrate, and their numbers, sadly decimated by the great frost of 1890-91, are 
now fairly upon the increase, and always, in my opinion, add a (reculiar charm 
to wild nature. W. 11 . Tuck. 
The Goldfinch. — Will you kindly allow me to draw attention to two items 
of evidence which bear out my contention that the goldfinch is not likely to 
disappear so soon as some authorities would have us believe ? The first is to be 
found in the recently published “ Birds of Breconshire,” by Mr. Cambridge 
I’hillips. On page 56 we read of the goldfinch : “ \’ery general all over the county. 
