NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
209 
The meeting of a hawk and a bat must be rather a rare occurrence, seeing 
that they live very much as Box and Cox are reported to have done. 
West Kensington , S. E. TENCH. 
October 4, 1906. 
434 . Swallows in a Porch. — Last year (No. 287) I described a swallow’s 
nest in a porch, the door of which is closed till about 7.30 a.m. It may be of interest 
to say that the swallows returned this spring, and, as we admitted our visitors at 
once, they had time to bring up two broods. Something went wrong with the 
fourth egg of the first brood, but all four of the second brood grew up. As last 
year, the young ones came back to the nest every evening some hours earlier than 
the parents, who continued feeding them till dusk. A second pair, after trying 
to possess themselves of the nest in the porch, settled under the eaves above it, 
and also brought up a family. A sparrow also tried to dispute possession, but 
was chased away by the swallows after he had brought in some straw and 
feathers. E. H. 
Cumberland , October 9, 1906. 
435 . Needless Slaughter. — The killing of a number of grass snakes 
and slow worms was, in No. 397, rightly called “needless slaughter.” What 
harm do they do? None whatever, rather the reverse. The grass snake feeds 
on frogs, mice, lizards and small fish ; and the blind worm on slugs. Their 
lives are innocence itself, and as such should be respected. In cementing a 
cellar for use the workmen came across a number of newts, “ swifts,” as they 
called them, and killed them all. On asking the reason, they informed me they 
were poisonons, and that if they “ flew at a person and bit him,” fatal results 
would follow. This was a case of “needless slaughter.” A newt cannot fly at 
us, its bite is too feeble to hurt us, and it is in no way poisonous. The food it 
eats entitles it to be ranked amongst useful animals. Another case of “ needless 
slaughter ” was the slaying of some 200 bats by workmen in mending a roof. 
Bats, too, are useful animals. If we wish to encourage the increase of mosquitoes, 
commonly called gnats, a sure way is to persecute bats. I have seen a single 
bat catch and eat a hundred mosquitoes in less than a quarter of an hour. 
Soulhacre, Swaffham , Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
October, 1906. 
436 . Pythons (No. 415 ). — Mr. Houghton quotes an article from the 
Wide World of August last, in which it is said that “ a missionary in Ceylon was 
followed by a tiger into a tree, and was in turn attacked and partly swallowed 
by a large python.” The missionary then shot the snake, took a single claw 
from the tiger’s foot, kept it as a trophy and photographed it. 
This narrative of “ Three in a Tree,” ought to squash a wretched naturalist 
like myself as flat as the traditional pancake, for daring to give publicity to the 
.opinion that “ Pythons do not attack such large animals as tigers, and could not 
swallow them if they did.” It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Houghton 
that this snake story raises difficulties very hard to swallow, which require more 
than the digestion of an ostrich to produce comfortable assimilation. On finding 
that this wondrous experience happened to a “ missionary in Ceylon,” I turned 
to the pages of “ Mammals, Living and Extinct,” by Flower and Lyddeker, where 
it is stated that the “Tiger does not inhabit Ceylon.” This is a bit awkward, 
and, added to this, the missionary seems to have been “up a tree” ! ! where he 
was “followed by a tiger.” Flower and Lyddeker are responsible for the 
declaration that “ as a rule tigers do not climb trees; but, when pressed by fear, 
as during an inundation, they have been known to do so.” In this instance the 
tiger must have been so “ pressed by fear ” of the Reverend Gent, as to climb 
up the tree on purpose to eat him. What a fortunate thing it is that the tiger 
does not turn tail and run away ; because if he had he would have spoiled the 
story. 
In the very next number of the Wide World there is an account of a 
python, 30 feet long, that was killed in the Philippines. This huge snake, which 
is about as long as any that are known to exist, had “swallowed a deer and a 
wild boar, weighing about 60 lbs.” A photograph is given of the skin of the 
python, and the narrative seems in all essentials practically correct. This snake 
