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NATURE NOTES. 
SELBORNIANA. 
Work at Barmoutll. — The Barmouth Branch of the Selborne Society is 
bestirring itself to protect the beautiful scenery of the district from depredation and 
defacement. In a paper read on April 4 it was suggested that an appeal should 
be made to visitors to refrain from exterminating flowers and ferns, and from 
destroying the beauty of various spots with picnic fragments. The committee 
have carried out the suggestion, and cards have been printed and distributed to 
all the lodging houses and hotels in the district. A joint committee of members 
of the District Council and Selbornians are now enquiring into the question of 
public foothpaths on the hills. 
D. Arthur Hughes. 
A Useful Hint. — -I think the Selborne Society should give greater prominence 
to the fact that the protection of beautiful places from disfigurement by litter, &c., 
is included in their programme. When last in town several persons remarked to 
me that they had not known that such a function was undertaken by the Selborne 
Society. Especially in watering and sea side places the Selborne Society might 
often act with greater vigour, and exercise greater vigilance. Would it be any 
advantage to have a special branch of the Society devoted to this purpose ? At 
least, I hope, the subject will not be overlooked. At the Conversazione held 
in May last, throughout many interesting speeches, the duty of Selbornians to 
protect beautiful places from this commonest form of spoliation was not once 
referred to. 
Blanxhe Atkinson. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
A Cuckoo caugkt in its own Trap. — One day about the middle of June 
I saw a cuckoo in our garden apparently flying from an ivy-covered wall, which 
has been for years a favourite nesting-place of the pied wagtail. The wfagtail’s 
nest not unfrequently contains a cuckoo’s egg, and I have found it myself on four 
occasions with this addition to the usual clutch. When I saw the cuckoo there 
did not happen to be any nest in the ivy ready for the reception of its egg, but 
I chanced to have by me a greenfinch’s nest with five fresh eggs, so I placed this 
nest with three of the eggs in the ivy, some eight or nine feet from the ground to 
see if it would attract the cuckoo. On visiting it a day or two later I found two 
of the eggs were gone, one of which lay broken on the ground below ; shortly 
afterwards the last egg had disappeared, and in its place there was left the un- 
mistakable egg of a cuckoo, which is now in our collection. My brother, who 
suggested the experiment to me, tells me it has been successfully tried abroad, 
but I am not aware that an instance of the cuckoo being thus beguiled has been 
recorded in this country before. In addition to this egg, our collection contains 
the egg of the cuckoo from the nests of the robin, hedge-sparrow, pied wagtail, 
whitethroat, sedge warbler, reed warbler, meadow pipet, linnet, greenfinch, 
bullfinch, and yellow bunting, and some young friends have found it in their 
parish in the nests of the willow warbler, and red-backed shri'Ke, but the in- 
terest of the latter egg is lessened by the fact that it was unaccompanied by any 
eggs of the foster-parents. 
Tost ock Rectory, West Suffolk. Julian G. Tuck. 
The Wild. Turtle-Dove.— Our garden is visited daily by wild turtle- 
doves, which are attracted by the maize and peas put down for the tame pigeons, 
and the small stones necessary for the digestion of their food which they find 
abundantly in the gravel. \Ve hear their peculiar “purring” note very early in 
the morning, and they become very tame, so much so that I have seen one feeding 
within a few yards of a party of croquet players. Few birds are more beautiful 
or more graceful, alike in repose on a tree, or in motion on the ground, but 
