XATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
91 
causes these myriads of feeble creatures, most of which cannot fly against the 
wind, to undertake a single fatal journey. What kind of instinct is this? It 
cannot be inherited ; because those that remain behind must have, if anything, 
an inherited tendency to stay at home. 
This migration of insects is fatal to the theory that migration is the result of 
the “ inherited experience called instinct.” 
Mr. W. G. Nightingale considers “276 miles an hour ” a great pace for the 
Black Swift. And so it is for a bird that is in the habit of flying at no great 
height above the earth, where the atmosphere is dense. High-fliers, however, 
that resort to great altitudes, eight or ten miles above sea-level, perform their 
migratory journeys in a rarity of atmosphere that offers but slight resistance to a 
velocity far greater than the one he mentions. 
The question of the pace of birds when migrating has already been entered 
into in back numbers of Nature Notes. 
South-acre, Swaffham. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
617 . G-olden Oriole. — A Golden Oriole was seen for about a week near 
Kettering at the beginning of last December, and another near Oundle at about 
the same time, by two of my friends. I reported one that I saw near Sidmouth in 
November, 1903, at the time, but saw no reference to it in Nature Notes, so 
presume it was overlooked. 
Haselbeech Rectory, Northampton, W. A. SuAW. 
March 9, 1908. 
618 . The Goldfinch. — Mr. G. A. B. Dewar asks if Redcap is a North 
Country name for the Goldfinch, to which question I can say it is, or was, certainly 
a Lincolnshire Wold name for that bird. In my boyhood, on those Wolds, thirty 
to forty years ago, the Goldfinch was not known to us by any other name. The 
only bird known to us as the Goldfinch, or “ Goolie,” as we used to generally 
call it, was the Yellowhammer. Not having access to any books on birds in those 
days, it was not until I went, in my teens, to live in Manchester, that I learnt 
differently. Subsequently I have resided in Cheshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, 
and Nottinghamshire, but never heard, in any of these counties, the name 
Redcap applied to the Goldfinch. These birds are not at all uncommon on the 
Wolds. On the last Sunday of 1903 I counted more than a score in one flock 
flying from bush to bush ; and on Christmas Day last, while fossil-hunting in a 
chalk-pit, I was delighted by the company of about half-a-dozen “ flitting ” from 
thistlebead to knapweed, twittering their sweet song all the time. As Mr. Dewar 
speaks so highly of another author’s lines, may I be permitted to say there are few 
authors whose writings delight me more than his own ? Only recently had I an 
opportunity to read his “Glamour of the Earth,” which was kindly lent me by 
Mrs. Cordeaux (widow of the late well-known ornithologist), who is herself a great 
admirer of Mr. Dewar’s writings. 
Louth, Lines., C. S. Carter. 
February 5. 
619 . Do British Spiders Bite Human Beings? — I remember 
reading of a gentlemen, a naturalist, I think, and possibly the Rev. J. G. Wood, 
having been bitten by, a garden spider. He was conscious of a sharp prick on his 
finger, which was followed shortly by a dull aching pain lasting for some little time, 
but no other results. I cannot at present trace this note in any of my books, but 
I believe the above is the substance of it. It is possible that house-spiders could 
produce a similar effect, but I know of no record, and it seems extremely unlikely 
that any small spider, however black (!), could make any impression with its 
fakes on the human skin. Could not “ A F'olklorist” (p. 73) manage to secure 
a few specimens of those mentioned in his note and forward them to Mr. F. P. 
Smith, 15, Cloudesley Place, London, N., who would certainly be able to 
identify them. 
Hale End, Chingford. C. Nicholson. 
620 . — In reply to Folklorist, I am of opinion that house-spiders can, but 
do not bite human beings. I have studied spiders of all kinds for the last forty 
