56 
NATURE NOTES 
87 . Bird-notes from Highgate.— On Sunday morning last I had the 
pleasure of seeing a spotted woodpecker in my garden. My attention was first 
called to it by a brilliant patch of colour moving about in a large lilac bush. It 
stayed in the bush for a couple of minutes and then flew to a small silver birch, 
from whence, unfortunately, it was frightened by a neighbour’s dog. It is not so 
much that the bird is a rarity (though it is the first I have ever seen), that makes 
it worthy of note, as the fact of meeting with it in a small suburban garden so 
near town, and only a few minutes from the railway station and high road. 
Highgate, owing to the woods and open spaces round about is, of course, favour- 
able to bird-life generally, and during the past year, amongst most of the 
commoner kinds of birds, I have had the fortune to see all wiihin a mile of my 
house. Redstarts (a pair). Nuthatches (a pair), Long-tailed Tits (party of ten in my 
garden), Whinchats, Redwing, Goldcrest, Owl, Blackcaps (a pair). Wagtails, 
Nightjars and Creepers frequently, and also at the end of my garden a young 
Cuckoo being fed by a Hedge-sparrow. On Christmas Day aiternoon, whilst 
walking in Hampstead Lane I saw a small bat hawking for fires. Last year I 
noticed very freqrrently what, to me, was rather unusual, viz.. Song-thrushes and 
Skylarks singing their full .song for minutes together whilst qurte stationary on the 
ground, and the former bird singing from the roof of a house. I nrentioned this 
latter to a “ bird ” friend of mine, who told me he also had observed the same 
thing for the first time. Is it at all unusual? 
40, SotOhwood Lane, Highgate, N. Charles S. Parsons. 
January 23, 1904. 
88. Waxwing (p. 35, Nature Notes, 1904). — “A. L. H.” will find the 
Waxwing mentioned in Bewick’s “British Birds’’ under the name of “The 
Chatterer ” ; and Gilbert White mentions the bird twice in his “ Natural History 
of Selborne,” viz., (i) in Letter xii. to Pennant, where it is referred to as the 
“German silk-tail”; and (2) in Letter i., to Barrington, where it occurs as 
No. 17 in the List of the Winter Birds of Passage. “ Silk-tail, Garrulus 
bohemicus." The name Waxwing appears to have been first used by Stephens 
in 1817. 
Crooke Aldersey, near Chester. G. B. Milne-Redhead. 
February 8, 1904. 
89 . Humming in the Air, mentioned in the “ Natural History of 
Selborne,” and referied to by your correspondents in pages 17 and 36 of Nature 
Notes, is locally known as the “ Midsummer Hum.” It is heard here on still 
sunny afternoons between the middle of June and the middle of July ; the hum- 
ming is exactly like that of bees and is apparently high in the air. I was told 
many years ago that if a stone was thrown high in the air, that large insects could 
be seen fljing after it. I have often thrown stones in the air since, on hearing 
the “ humming ” and have always seen two or three insects like bees come down 
after the stone, but never sufficiently near to see whether they were bees. I have 
never heard a satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon, or why bees should fly 
in this manner. 
90 . Gossamer. — As an instance of the enormous number of these spiders 
and the rapidity with which they spin their webs. I have seen a field of sixteen 
acres freshly harrowed in the morning and in the aiternoon, four or five hours 
after, completely covered with a network of webs, which must have been spun 
after the harrows had passed. 
Weston, Lamhounte, Berks. R. Osmond. 
February 10, 1 904. 
91 . Trees Struck by Lightning. — There have been two or three of 
these in this neighbourhood of late. One is an elm standing in a fence running 
roughly north and .south. On either side of it the fence is made of “spiles” (as 
we say in Kent), with a twisted wire cord interlacing them near the top, fixed to 
the elm at each side of it. It seems certain that this wire cord has acted as a 
conductor either to the elm or from it. There is a gash on each side of the tree 
extending down just past the point where the wires are fixed, but not reaching 
the ground. It was suggested to me that the current had passed upwards from 
some damp ground to the wire, which conducted it to the tree, up which it 
passed, generating steam in the damp wood, and so blowing off narrow strips of 
