XATURE XOTES 
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Zanzibar. I watched them during two winters, and made enquiries from the 
natives, but always found that the mountain chain, though only two or three 
thousand feet above the great plateau on which they spent the winter, was an 
impassable barrier to the birds. I next collected the birds on both sides of the 
great range, and found that those common on the east side were common to 
Zanzibar and the East Coast, whilst those common on the west side were common 
to the great lakes of Central Africa, but not to the East Coast. 
Some six years ago flerr Fleuricke, working out the question of the migration 
of birds in North Central Europe, said that the mountain ranges were avoided at 
the cost of a considerable circuit ; that the birds of Northern Europe made for the 
Moravian gates, the easy pass between the mountains of South Germany and the 
Western Carpathians ; that they' followed a river valley, such as the Rhine and 
^’olga, whenever they could, and that many lines of migration ended in a cul-de- 
sac of high mountains, and that this determined the winter quarters of many 
species ; that the south-west corner of the Carpathians was such a spot, and that 
there the birds congregated in incredible numbers. I might add that Mpwapwa 
is just such another spot, a long range of hills some 7,000 feet high, branching off 
from the great range at Mpwapwa and extending west or north-west for more 
than a hundred miles. They are the mountains of Uhehe. I was very familiar 
with them, though they are unmarked in most maps. 
Lypiatt Lodge, Cheltenham. S. T. Pruen, M.D. 
February 19, 1908. 
NATURAL HISTORY QUERIES. 
139 . The Weasel. — A strange thing took place about two days ago. One 
of us was looking out of a window which opens on to the garden, and is at 
right angles to an older portion of the house. From the angle close by came 
a weasel and went straight across the lawn, passing close to the window where 
we were watching, to a clump of acacia trees with ivy over the trunks. It went 
up one to the height of about 8 ft., then we saw two sparrows hovering in 
great alarm, and immediately after the weasel descended with a full-fledged 
bird in its mouth and went up the wall from whence it came and disappeared 
over the spouting. The gardener went up, but could find no signs either outside 
or in the loft, and laconically remarked, “ You won’t have no rats while he is 
up there.” Why should the weasel have a den in a dwelling-house when there 
are plenty of ricks close by ; and is it a common occurrence? 
M. S. V. 
140 . The Hedgehog. — Nearly all country people know, and many believe, 
the. story that hedgehogs suck — or at any rate in some way take — milk from cows. 
Perhaps it may be as well to put on record in Nature Notes that once when 
I happened to be strolling about in a pasture-field in Cadney, Lincolnshire, the 
cows in it were quite indifferent to my presence among them, till I took up and 
carried a hedgehog. As soon as they noticed this, however, they ran hither and 
thither in evident unrest. My surprise was great, and I still ask myself why 
they were disturbed at sight of the animal. Are experienced farm-labourers 
right, after all, when they declare they have often seen hedgehogs stealing away 
from cows, and, more rarely, have actually come on them drawing milk? If 
they have made no mistake, why do the cows permit the hedgehogs to take 
milk? A Folklorist. 
P.S.- — Are full-grown hedgehogs ever seen without prickles? Mr. H. 
Mackenzie, writing in the Manchester Guardian, March 2, 1901, says even now 
a “ throw-back ” — a spineless baby — may occasionally ’oe found in a litter of four 
or five normal white-spined young hedgehogs.” What do these spineless ones 
become when they grow up ? 
[If our correspondent will consult the back volumes of Nature Notes he 
will find these popular delusions duly confuted. Hedgehogs will sleep near a 
cow for the sake of the warmth ; and perhaps the cow may have unpleasant 
recollections of its spines. Rustic observation is often very superficial, e.g., when 
it tells us that a cuckoo becomes a hawk. — E d. A^.A.] 
