NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
189 
elms, hawthorn, plum trees, laburnum, and Pyrus japonica , are shedding their 
leaves weeks before the usual time. Never before have I seen wall fruit so injured 
by the sun. Peaches have a part, the size of a five shilling piece, so roasted 
that the crop is nearly spoiled. Pears on the walls are almost, if not quite, as 
bad. Vegetables in general, that could not be watered, are unfit for the table ; 
and many flower gardens are a sorry sight. As to the root crops in the fields, I 
fear to think what will become of them unless rain comes at once to the rescue. 
They are terribly mildewed, and have become tough, and almost as hard as 
wood. Water plants, however, flourish. The vegetation in the decoy below my 
house is more dense and luxuriant than I have ever known it. 
Southacre , Swaftham, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
September > 1906. 
408. Robins Killing their Parents. —Miss Ilagen, in Query No. 88, 
asks whether the “ popular belief that Robins kill their parents in the autumn” 
has any foundation in fact. This was touched upon in Nature Notes a few years 
ago, when I stated it to be groundless, as far as my observation went. It is quite 
contrary to what one would expect. I have at times seen old robins drive young 
ones about my garden. In one notable instance, a young bird that used to settle 
on my knee was violently attacked by an old bird whenever it went near a par- 
ticular spot, and had to flee for its very life. Young birds of the year, besides 
being less powerful than their parents, are not practised in attack like older ones. 
They have to pass through the ordeal of fighting for a mate before acquiring 
full pugilistic powers ; and the longer they live the more they have to fight in 
the struggle for existence. In the spring, birds fight in rivalry with other males. 
In summer they fight for their homes and their young. In the autumn they fight 
for the possession of some favourite spot, and it is at this time that old birds drive 
young ones from their company. In winter they fight for food. Most birds have 
some particular haunt and regular beat. Robins take to a certain part of our 
garden, and resent the intrusion of other robins. Kingfishers keep to one stretch 
of the river, and respect other kingfishers’ water. As regularly as clockwork in 
the evening owls fly past my house, and hoot in the same stopping places on 
their journey to their feeding-grounds. Remarks such as these hold good in the 
case of many other birds with which I come in contact almost every day 
Very few of our common birds live long enough to become enfeebled by age, 
the odds against their living to old age being so very great. To give a rough idea 
of the mortality among little birds, let me say that most pairs produce four young 
ones in the year — some a good many more. As their numbers remain the same, 
taking one year with another, it follows that if a hundred birds inhabit my 
premises, two hundred that belong to these premises, or were born here, must die 
during the year. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
409. Shakespeare’s Treatment of Nature. — In reading the part of 
Edgar in “ King Lear” a short time ago, it occurred to me that the exclamation 
“ do de, do de ! ” in one of his mad speeches (Act III, Scene 4) might be intended 
as an imitation of the song of the Thrush. His speeches are full of allusions to 
living creatures. 
New Milton. T- E. Kelsall. 
410. A London Bird Visitor. — About dusk on September 5, a Kestrel 
sailed over Clapham Common at no great height. It seemed a littte bewildered, 
and may, perhaps, have been an escaped bird ; or it may have lost its way. 
Would the bats, which are numerous thereabout, cause the bird to swoop down ? 
The bird attracted little notice, though someone behind me said, “ What is that ? 
It is not a pigeon.” 
Battersea. Walter Johnson. 
411. The Baker’s Jackdaw. — At Wokingham, according to Feathered 
Life , there is a jackdaw which has acquired so much intelligence as to accompany 
its master, a baker, on his delivery rounds. Occasionally the bird flies to a 
house or tree-top, and regains the cart by a long swoop as the horse trots along 
the road. The jackdaw and its master are said to be on the best of terms, and 
