NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
33 
is mentioned as a provincial name for goldfinch. Is it North Country? I have 
never heard it “down South.” In one district among chalk downs and chalk 
streams in a southern county, the goldfinch is now, I believe, more common than 
the chaffinch. There is not a day in the year when one cannot make a certainty 
of seeing or hearing the goldfinch in this district, which I would rather not 
mention by name, lest it reach the ear of some bird-catcher. Many poets have 
described the goldfinch, but none so well, I think, as Mr. Ralph Hodgson in 
his little book “The Lost Blackbird.” He speaks of the goldfinch on the 
yew tree : — 
“ The gold-winged exquisites that shine 
Upon the yew in May.” 
Everybody who cares for our wild birds and their preservation should read 
this little book, “ The Lost Blackbird and other Verses.” No English poet or 
prose writer has ever described birds with so sure and exquisite a touch as Ralph 
Hodgson. Every bird in his few pages is a live bird. 
December 21, 1907. George A. B. Dewar. 
589. Luminosity in Owls, &C. — Some most interesting letters have 
appeared in the Times from Sir T. Digby Pigott and others on this remarkable 
phenomenon. Two of these we quote i/i extenso. Sir T. Digby Pigott writes, 
from Sheringham, Norfolk, on December 24 : — 
“ With so many more important matters clamouring for a hearing, I am 
almost ashamed to ask you to find room again for my luminous owl. But if, 
before the fatal 29th shuts off all hope, you can find a corner for it, the following 
extract from a letter written by a Wells fisherman will, I think, interest many of 
your readers. 
“That an unusual moving light has been noticed, and that almost as cer- 
tainly it is conveyed by al bird, is, I think, now proved beyond question. 
Not only has it been seen again by my first correspondent, but also later by 
a policeman on his night round, and, as I learn this morning, since seen by the 
wife and daughter of the squire in one of whose coverts the bird has apparently 
its home. 
“‘On December 12 several of us fishermen [writes one of them] were 
standing on Wells-bar between 2 o’clock and 6. It was a very dark morning. 
About 4 we were all surprised to find something blowing about just like blue 
fire. Our mittens and the edges of our sou'-westers were soon full ; it hung to 
them like cobwebs, and some parts of it were very bright. I thought you would 
like to know about this, as it would be about the same time the luminous owl 
was seen, and I do not see why it should not hang on a bird’s feathers as well as 
it did on us. There were about ten of us, so I do not think we were deceived 
in what we saw.’ 
“I may mention, perhaps, that the letter you were good enough to publish 
had been reprinted in more than one local paper. 
“ ‘ In a curious book, entitled “ A Wonderful History of All the Storms, 
Hurricanes, Earthquakes, &c.” (8vo, I.ondon, 1704), occurs [writes the late 
Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian of the British Museum] the following 
account of “ flames that appear upon the haires of men and beasts : their cause.” 
These are sometimes clammy exhalations scattered in the air in small parts, 
which, in the night, by the .resistance of the cold, are kindled by cleaving to 
horses’ ears and men’s heads and shoulders, riding or walking ; and that they 
cleave to hair or garments it is by the same reason that dew cleaves to them, 
they being dry and attractive, and so more proper to receive them.’ 
“The 
“ ‘ Wandering fires. 
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night 
Condenses, and the cold environs round,’ 
may not, since Milton’s days, have so completely disappeared from well-drained 
England as some of us had supposed.” 
“ A Country Teacher,” replying to a previous letter, writes on the same day :: — 
“ Will you allow me to add a little to Sir Digby Pigott’s account of the 
luminous owl, which was published in the Tsmes Weekly Edition of December 20? 
