92 NATURE NOTES 
Epsom College Natural History Society Report for 1905. L. W. Andrews and Son, 
Epsom. Price is. 6d. 
The local phenological lists of plants, Lepidoptera, and birds, the meteoro- 
logical record, and that of the weights and measures of the boys, maintain the 
value of this Report, apart from an interesting paper on Castleton, in Derbyshire, 
some Notes on Duckweeds, and several excellent photographs, mostly local. At 
the same time, it is regrettable to read that the Society is not adequately supported 
by the School as a whole. 
Received: The American Botanist for March; and The Naturalist , The 
Irish Naturalist, Knowledge, The Animal World, The Animals’ Friend, The 
Humanitarian, The Parents' Review and The Agricultural Economist for April. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
343 . Cat and Mole. — A homeless cat has haunted the neighbourhood 
of this house for some considerable time. A capital mouser she is. On her 
coming over the garden wall this morning (April 1) to receive our bounty as 
usual, I noticed a black object dangling from her breast. On a closer inspection 
it proved to be a full-grown mole, dead but warm, so firmly attached to the skin 
of the cat that it required some force on my part to remove it. It was thus 
pretty evident the cat had attacked the mole, which retaliated, and had hung 
on even in death with bull-dog tenacity'. That the mole is an animal of great 
determination I have known for many years. 
Fyfield, near Abingdon. W. H. Warner. 
344 . Stoats. — Stoats are known to be great egg-stealers, and their method 
of taking them away has long puzzled me. Some time ago the opinion was given 
in Nature Notes that they carried them in their mouths, an impossibility, as 
it seemed to me, owing to the small expanse of the stoat’s jaw. I have come 
across a man here who has been associated with the preservation of game all his 
life, and who has caught stoats in the act of purloining eggs. He says they carry 
them under their chins against their breast. Stoats with young will rob every 
partridge’s nest in field after field round their home. 
April, 1906. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
345 . Tame Deer. — In the papers there has lately been an account of 
a tame deer attacking and killing its owner. The males of the deer tribe are 
not to be depended on as pets, and the tamer they become the more dangerous 
they are sure to be. In taming a timid creature like a deer, we destroy its fear, 
but not its pugnacity ; and when its natural fear is gone, it will use its horns 
against men and other animals from which in a wild state it would instinctively 
flee. For the same reason, though perhaps in a less degree, bulls and rams are 
dangerous and not to be trusted. In the case of a ferocious animal, such as 
a lion or a bear, becoming tame, it is its tendency to attack that is destroyed. 
A tame lion is not so treacherous as a tame deer. 
Southacre, Swaffham, April , 1906. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
346 . Guardian Birds. — The Standard of March 14, 1906, reviewing 
“ Recreations of a Naturalist,” by James Edmund Harting, quotes from that 
work as follows: “A very curious account, too, is given of the experience of 
lighthouse keepers as to the immigration of birds, which they have the best 
opportunities of watching. A remarkable confirmation of what, it seems, has 
long been asserted by foreign travellers and ornithologists — namely, that the 
small birds cross the sea carried on the backs of larger ones — is given by' the 
foreman of the South Gare Breakwater at the mouth of the Tees. In 1882 he 
saw a short-eared owl ‘ come flopping across the sea,’ and when it ‘ lit down 
within ten yards of where he stood, a golden-crested wren dropped off its back,’ 
which the man followed and caught.” 
