56 
NATURE NOTES. 
was an inch or two deep, looking, I suppose, for beechmast, and in every way 
os lively as if it were July instead of January. 
Chipstead, Kent. G. 
Gold Fish. (p. 37). — Selbornians should certainly hold it execrable to keep 
gold, or any other fish without a due supply of food, for although they obtain 
their oxygen from the water, they can obtain nothing from it to supply the waste 
of tissue that necessarily goes on in all animals. But the food should be used 
sparingly, and never in larger quantities than is required by the immediate appe- 
tites of the inhabitants of the aquarium, unless it is of such a nature, i.e., certain 
animals, that the environment of the aquarium is compatible with their health 
and happiness until they are required as food by their larger fellow inhabitants. 
The little worm found in the moss which grows on the stones at the bottom ot 
most streams, is of this nature, and several water insects : but if bread, or other 
readily decomposable food, be used it will soon foul the water. Water weeds of 
some sort should always be kept in the aquarium, as fish, in common with alt 
animals, give off the poisonous gas, carbonic acid, which will assuredly end the 
life of any that has its oxygen-supplying medium charged with it ; whereas plants, 
by their leaves, through the agency of sunlight, split up the carbonic acid gas into 
its elements, carbon and oxygen, retaining the former for their own use and giving 
off the latter. 
Cudham, Kent. W. Tothill. 
Birds at Windows. — It would be interesting to know if those who are 
accustomed to feed the birds at their windows in the winter have noticed an 
unusual absence of chaffinches this year. Even during the severe weather of the 
first half of January I did not myself see a single chaffinch. At the end of the 
fortnight a hen came, and a cock a little later, but they did not remain. In 
previous years they have not failed to come as soon as food was put out for them. 
Is it that this pretty little bird is “becoming extinct,” or is it that they have 
“ gone south ” in larger numbers than usual, in expectation of the severe weather ? 
On my window outside is a flower box full of earth, and on the earth I have put 
the crumbs, potato, scraps of meat, &c. , which have been appreciated by robins, 
blue tits, great tits, a wren, hedge sparrows, and house sparrows. One robin has 
almost made his home upon the box. When I come down in the morning he is 
almost sure to be there, or else waiting patiently for his breakfast on a laurustinus 
tree close to the window ; and often long after sunset, when almost too dark to see 
him, he is still there. He is an interesting little fellow, though he does, it is 
true, sometimes seem to imagine he has sole right to box, crumbs and all, and I 
have seen him drive off as many as three or four sparrows at once. In the early 
winter he wcuild quickly snatch a few crumbs and then be off at the slightest alarm, 
but he has now become tame enough to often take his meal leisurely while I am 
standing close to the window inside. It is amusing to see him endeavour to 
imitate the tits in his attempts to cling to a small piece of fat which I hung on a 
tree near the window. The tits cling to the bottom of the fat, back downwards, 
even when it swings violently or whirls round and round in a strong wind. This 
feat, however, the robin cannot accomplish, but endeavours to alight on top of it. 
Failing to do this he flutters in the air by the side of it, giving a vigorous peck at 
it, but he is unable to retain that position for long. I have seen him at least 
eight times make the attempt upon the fat in the course of a minute or two, but 
without success, even when there is no wind. He now' appears to have abandoned 
his efforts altogether. It is worthy of note that before he observed the action of 
the tits he never once, to my knowledge, made the slightest attempt to cling to 
the fat, though it had been hanging there several days before the tits came to it, 
and though he was often on the tree within a few feet of it. The sparrows never 
attempt to touch the fat while it hangs on the tree, but if it is tied closely to a 
branch they are all at it at once. One wonders what most birds can possibly find 
to eat with snow on the ground for days several inches in depth. 
It seems strange that the starling, though so “domestic” a bird in many 
respects, spending so much of his time on our house tops and chimneys, will never 
come to the window for food, though he will often take it readily when thrown on 
the grass near the house. I he blackbird and thrush will sometimes venture, but 
the starling I have never seen. Vet how often, at almost all seasons of the year, 
“ He my chimney for a speaking trumpet takes,” sending down in his remarkably 
