NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
115 
Park before breakfast. To this habit alone naturalists owe several notes and 
memoranda contributed to the Field and other journals, which might otherwise 
have escaped notice, for the number of such observers in London is very rare. 
Mr. Smith was also a famous trout-fisher. His fernery at Weybridge, of which 
he was very proud, bespoke an enthusiasm for another branch of natural science 
in which he likewise displayed a wide and accurate knowledge. 
A Selbornian in Greece. — I was sorry, when travelling in Greece a 
few weeks ago, to come across several instances of domestic animals not being 
very kindly treated. Donkeys staggered under heavy market loads, and skinny 
horses felt the whip somewhat frequently, though the poor beasts were doing 
their level best. I am aware that Pharisaism is an especially British vice, and 
that we have still a good many beams in our own eyes. I am aware that the 
Greeks, being, like most southern races, a temperate people, are very sorry for 
us for needing Bands of Hope. Still, these povere heslie, as the gentle-hearted 
Italians would call them — ! 
Could not English travellers in Greece make a point of asking those 
drivers, whose humanity leav’es something to be desired, to deal gently with 
their horses ? Could not English residents in Greece — perhaps they do — try 
and stir feelings of sympathy among boys with animals? At Mycenre I made 
the acquaintance of a little white dog — a most sweet person, who understood and 
talked my language with a good deal more comprehension than his two-legged 
fellow-countrymen. Yet when my little friend, being hungry at lunch time, 
came and asked for his share, up rose a two-legged Greek, after the fashion of a 
Homeric hero, and flung a rock at him ! 
E. Dixon. 
Lost British Birds. — The Society for the Protection of Birds sends us an 
admirable paper on this subject by Mr. \V. H. Hudson. We hope to notice it at 
length at an early date. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Robins atKew. — Visitors to the Temperate House, Kew, are often pleased 
at hearing the song of the robin ; one or two couples are found there more or less 
all the year round, and also rear their young in the house. Your readers will, 
however, be more interested to hear that last year a robin’s nest was found in the 
grounds, in a golden yew, with four eggs in it. This nest was a source of much 
interest to one of the constables, who paid frequent visits to it. One day, to his 
great surprise, he found only one egg in the nest, and this one much larger than 
the four he had at first seen, and he could not understand how the four eggs 
had got out of the nest, or where they had got to. But on looking under the yew 
one day, there were the four missing eggs, and how they had got there was 
explained on finding a young cuckoo was hatched from the one egg left in the 
nest. The cuckoo had ousted the robin’s eggs, and laid her own in the nest, 
and in due time the young cuckoo made its appearance, and was tended by the 
robins until able to fly. Its first essay was to a tree close by ; here, said the 
constable, the thrushes and blackbirds seemed not to know what to make of the 
strange bird, and pecked at it, but it eventually got away, and be saw no more 
of it. The constable added, that it was a strong and prettily marked bird. 
Keiv . Ina Mellor. 
A Thoughtful Sheep. — At this season of the year the fields and pastures 
look more than interesting, dotted over as they are with numerous herds and 
flocks, the heavily fleeced mothers, with little white innocent-faced lambs gambol- 
ling by their side, the objects of tender solicitude to these mothers. Many 
years ago it came under the notice of the writer to observe a mother with twin 
lambs, one of which seemed quite different from the other, wandering about 
