34 
NATURE NOTES 
In a meadow near here there is a perfect circle of fungi (fairy-ring) about 20 
paces in diameter. I do not know the names of fungi so cannot say what kind. 
Just within this circle moles have thrown up a perlect ring of hillocks, with a 
gap of only'a few feet. There are no other mole-hills very near. Can there be 
any reason for the mole having followed the same line as the fungus? 
Yoxford, January (j, 1901. E. H. B. 
How Rats carry Eggs. — I am indebted to Mr. Read for his interesting 
notes hereon on page 216 in the November issue. I regret, in answer to his 
enquiry, that I cannot ascertain whether there were any indications on the eggs 
which would lead one to suppose that they were carried by the stoat in its mouth. 
The keeper told me that they were perfectly whole, not a single one cracked or 
disfigured, and that unfortunately is as far as I can report. 
W. PERC1V.4L Westell, M.B.O.U. 
5, Glenferrie Road, St. Albans, 
Herts, November 29, 1900. 
In reference to the letter in the December number of Nature Notes on the 
discussion as to how rats carry eggs, perhaps the writer may not have heard of 
the following method : — A rat lies down on its back and holds the egg in its 
feet, while a second rat is engaged to drag the prostrate one and its treasure by 
the tail to its hole. Kathleen Enid Wilson. 
Lancing College, December 14, 1900. 
How to Attract Tits. — In reply to “E. C. R.,” Mr. F. Primrose Steven- 
son writes; — “ In our garden at Norwich, within a few minutes’ walk only of the 
city, it was our invariable practice, year after year, to suspend from the end of a 
string in front of our breakfast-room window, a lump of hard suet fat. My 
recollection of the number of titmice, of more than one species too, which 
constituted our daily patrons, is certainly not that of ‘ E. C. R.,’ who complains 
of a want of success, for otherwise my father, the late Mr. Henry Stevenson, 
F.L.S., in his ‘Christmas Carol for our Summer Songsters,’ would never have 
written : — 
‘ The Titmice, too, come with the rest. 
But for these you suspend, by a string. 
The hard suet and fat they love best. 
And will eat, as they airily swing. 
Their performance, at first, will amaze. 
As, head downwards, they hang by their feet 
To that firm dietetic trapeze. 
Feathered acrobats, earning a treat.’” 
If “ E. C. R.” will get a cocoanut and cut it in half and hang it up in his 
garden I think he will get plenty of tits to visit him, at least that is my own 
experience through many winters. The cocoanut is hanging outside this window 
from the verandah, and I get “great tits,” “blue tits,” and “ black caps,” and 
occasionally long-tailed tils, and they also much enjoy the basin of water that 
stands under the nut. 
Lamorna, Torquay, Lydia Pengelly. 
fanuary 3, 1900. 
Owls. — White owls in this highly preserved district are steadily increasing in 
numbers. Brown owls however are rare. I heard one hoot here the first time 
for years a month ago. A neighbouring landlord tells me he has induced his 
keepers to spare owls, and has prohibited the barbarous pole trap on his domain. 
In the next village a keeper has a pair of white owls in a tree close to his house, 
and is one of the enlightened of his race who permits them to live. Would that 
more were like him. 
Market Weston, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
December, 1900. 
Large Hawks. — A honey buzzard has lately been shot near here. Owners 
of estates often find it useless to try and save the lives of large and rare hawks, 
for if they do so the keepers kill them on the quiet. If I were the owner of a 
sporting estate I would make it worth my keeper’s while to spare these noble 
birds, and would give an extra premium in all cases of their nesting and rearing 
their young successfully. 
December, 1900. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
