36 NATURE NOTES 
them to his nestlings on the curtain-pole. No one disturbed this brood and they, 
too, were safely reared. 
There is another case too, which came within my knowledge, where two 
robins for many months roosted nightly in the dining-room of a friend’s house. 
They always sat on the top of a glass shade which was fastened to the ceiling 
above the lamp, squeezing themselves in between the glass and the ceiling. 
The inmates of both the houses mentioned were great lovers of birds, and 
observers of their ways. It would seem almost as if the little creatures knew 
instinctively who would be kind and extend hospitality to them and their young. 
The Gables, IVirksworth. C. E. Meade Waldo. 
Common Bunting. — It has lately been stated that the common bunting 
is to be seen in some parts of England at certain times of the year and not at 
others. I have seen it the year through in Somersetshire and Hampshire, and 
here can find it any day within 200 yards of my house. 
Alarket IVeston, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
January, 1900. 
Snow Buntings. — My brother saw three of these beautiful birds whilst out 
shooting some few miles from Penzance last December. There is a wild, bleak 
moor in this district where they are occasionally to be met with in the fall of the 
year and we have found them here before. Whilst on the ground they are very 
agile and give one rather the idea of a sanderling, but when on the wing they 
have the typical bunting flight. 
Penzance, January j, 1901. Arthur W. Hext Harvey. 
Birds Singing when Abroad. — A friend sends me an interesting article 
in which I find the following quotation : “ Every migrant has a definite destina- 
tion : at one end of its fly line is the land of its nativity and its resting place ; 
at the other end its summer home. As a rule birds nest in the coldest latitudes 
of their range, and luxuriate after the toils of domestic life in some fruitful sunny 
land. No birds nest and rear a second brood during their absence from their 
colder habitat. They sin^^ the livelong day and revel in rich feeding grounds.” 
Is it true that they sing like this when away from us? In the heart of Africa, or 
wherever they may be, are the familiar notes of the nightingale, black cap, white 
throat, and such like, an every-day occurrence ? One would suppose that most 
birds sung very little, if at all, w’hen away from the land of their birth, and 
unstimulated by the attractions and rivalries of courtship. 
Market Weston, Thetjord, PId.viund Thos. Daubeny. 
December, 1900. 
Wood Pigeons. — As I was standing at the bottom of a deep coombe in 
.Somersetshire, one of my brothers, who was on the top of the perpendicular rocks 
above me, shot a wood pigeon high over his head, which fell near where I was. 
The impetus when falling was so great as to cause a rushing sound like that of 
a rocket. The bird struck the outer branches of an oak tree and crashed through 
them like a large stone. When I picked it up the breast was transfixed by a 
broken branch of the oak as thick as my little finger. The distance fallen must 
have been at least 300 feet ; and it was the most remarkable sight of the sort I 
have ever witnessed. 
December, igoo. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
House Martins, &0. — A friend to w’hom I had lent some numbers of 
Nature Notes writes: — “I notice some writers mentioning the scarcity of 
house martins. I think they had a disaster in the migration, as it blew a gale 
from the loth to the l6lh April, and the first swallows did not arrive till after 
this was over. The first martins came on April 29, which is a week or ten days 
later than usual. Last year we had forty nests under the eaves, this year six. 
I never knock down the old nests, the work of making a new nest being hard 
on the birds, as they have difficulty in making their first clay pellets stick. They 
repair the old nests in a very short time. Any sparrow taking a nest soon learns 
what dust shot in his ‘inwards’ feels like. It has been the worst year for 
migratory birds, all but nightingales, that I can remember. The fly-catchers left 
ten days earlier than usual.” 
November, 1900. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
