78 
NATURE NOTES. 
fashioned, and repeated the process, but was rewarded this time by finding her 
progeny. She sat and watched the young bird for some time, and then flew 
away ; the sparrow foster-parents meanwhile flew wildly about, calling out loudly, 
evidently much disturbed by the event. These facts seem to prove that the parent 
cuckoo does take some interest in the egg after she has deposited it in the nest. 
Canterbury. C. C. 
Brimstone Butterfly (p. 58). — Mr. W. Warde Fowler will, I trust, excuse 
the suggestion, that the brimstone butterfly seen on January 20 was a hiber- 
nated individual, and not one newly emerged from the chrysalis. This species 
emerges in July and August, and often passes the winter in hibernation, appear- 
ing on the wing on the first sunny days of the new year. 
Richard F. Towndrow. 
[U. M. L. writes to the same effect.] 
A Wasp Fight. — I witnessed a curious fight between two wasps when 
staying in North Wales last August. They fought furiously together, and finally 
both fell into the river Dee, on the bank of which I was sitting. They con- 
tinued fighting in the river, but in a minute or two one got on the top of the 
other, sending him under the water. The conqueror, evidently leaving him for 
dead, flew away at once. I could not reach the other one to save him, and feared 
he would drown, but he floated down stream a little way, then rose from the water 
and flew straight to the bank. I suppose his wings were not soaked, otherwise he 
must surely have been drowned. Kathleen E. Knocker. 
Rooks. — These birds are, as j’Our correspondent Mr. Rooper says, very 
eccentric in their habits, and most interesting to watch. I have for some years 
been in the habit of feeding small birds in frosty weather. About three years ago 
I noticed that two or three rooks put in an appearance, and actually came quite 
close to the windows to feed. This year three rooks have again come to the 
front, and I yesterday noticed that one of them having carried away a large bone 
into the middle of the field, both his companions endeavoured to deprive him of 
it. One stationed himself on the right hand, the other on the left, and while the 
possessor of the coveted bone drove away his foe on the left, number three, on 
the right, would come and seize the attractive morsel ; but at last number one 
succeeded in driving both away. He has not come to visit me to-day. Probably 
he may, on returning to the rookery, have had a thrashing for his selfishness from 
some members of the colony. I do not know of any rookery nearer Liss than 
Selborne. Helen M'atney. 
Effects of tke Frost. — In these parts the thrush tribe has suffered most 
from the frost. The thrushes themselves were silent till the thaw came, and even 
then sang but seldom, and with little life or interest in singing till March 10, when 
tw'O of them in rivalry came near some of those nightingale notes always heard in 
March. The blackbirds have been still more reticent, though their numbers have 
not perceptibly diminished ; they began on February 24. In other years they 
have started singing on February 15, and simply monopolized the end of that 
month and a good part of March. The rain on March 8 and 9 tempted the 
yellowhammer to begin his drawl, and the missel thrush to burst out in our 
garden after first trying his song over the day before in distant woods. The red- 
wings were busy with our holly berries on January 30, but have not since 
reappeared. The fieldfares, after enduring the first week of frost, migrated 
somewhere, leaving only a few stragglers behind, which in their turn have left 
our country side. The larks and bramblings, who had also migrated to a W'armer 
and more fruitful county, came back on' the same day, March l, and the larks 
immediately commenced singing. The tits seem to be the least affected in num- 
bers or spirits by the long spell of cold weather. The great tit, it is true, was 
not to be heard during the frost proper, but he got to work directly it began to 
thaw, in the middle of the day, and on February 24 we heard the mellower notes 
with which he recommends his courtship. The blue tit was still better ; scorning 
the bitter cold, he began singing on his usual day, February 12, and four days 
afterwards was seen pursuing his courtship in a cruel north-easter. The hedge 
sparrow waited for the thaw to set in, but sang so vigorously then that he made 
himself the most prominent bird of the month. The greenfinch began as usual 
on March 2; the chaffinch on February 13. large flock of them of both 
