NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
75 
Iwo favoured localities. I have been recently informed that this bird has been 
seen on the cliffs to the west of Penzance, but I very much doubt the accuracy of 
the statement, as the casual observer gets hopelessly mixed in the members of the 
crow family. I shall endeavour to ascertain, however, how far there is any truth 
in the report. Truly the times have greatly altered for the worse since Carew 
wrote, whilst speaking of birds that live by the sea, “ .\mongst which, jackdaws 
(the .second slander of our country) shall pass for company as frequenting their 
haunt though not their diet. I mean not the common daw, but one peculiar to 
Cornwall and therethrough termed a Cornish chough.” Nowadays the only 
“slander of our country” in connection with the chough lies in the fact of the 
persecution which he has received. Also, I fear, he is not long to be “ peculiar 
to Cornwall,” save most probably by his absence. 
Fetizance, February 15, 1901. Arthur W. Hext II.aRVEY. 
Natives and Foreigners. — The English goldfinch is now becoming well 
established in our island-colony, and flocks of these delightful little birds may be 
seen in the neighbourhood of Launceston, especially at the First Basin, a lake- 
like expansion of the swift Esk River, with plenty of scrub growing around its 
shores : here they love to flit from tree to tree, their brilliant colours glowing in 
the sunlight. Even down this coast they are rapidly pushing their way, and a 
flock was seen a few months ago on the Sisters’ Hills, away to the westward, 
much to the wonderment of some of the young natives, who had never seen these 
birds before. Now comes a strange fact : our large Pallid cuckoo (C. pallidus) is 
beginning to adopt the goldfinch as a foster-parent to its young. On the 4th of 
last month a nest was found with two eggs of the finch and one of the large 
cuckoo. C. palHdus is in the habit of laying in open nests, in this differing from 
our other common cuckoos, the fantailed and the bronze, which nearly always 
choose domed nests for the insertion of their eggs ; but the usual foster-parents of 
the Pallid species are the honeyeaters, some of whose eggs are not unlike its own. 
The difference, however, between the large flesh-tinted egg of the cuckoo and the 
small greenish ones of the finch, is very striking, and shows marked opposition to 
the theory' that the intruded egg must not be alarmingly different from those of 
the intended foster-parent. It will be interesting to note in future summers 
whether this relation between native and foreigner becomes well-establi.shed. 
Table Cape, Tasmania. II. Stuart Do\'e. 
December 16, 1900. 
Adders Swallowing Young. — Mr. Horace Tuppen, late of Ripe, near 
Lewes, Sussex, a sportsman-naturalist of the best type, has often described to me 
an observation of his upon a male and female adder and sixteen young ones. 
The occurrence took place on his own farm near Lewes some years ago, and 
those who know Mr. Tuppen (he was an intimate friend of Mr. Booth, whose 
Museum in the Dyke Road at Brighton is so well known and appreciated) will 
readily believe every word he utters. 
Shortly stated, Mr. Tuppen shot the mile adder, and no sooner had he done 
so than he actually witnessed the female receiving the young ones into her mouth. 
He shot her, and the young ones immediately came out of the female’s mouth, 
my friend killing them one by one until the whole sixteen were disposed of ! 
Mr. Tuppen narrated this incident to Dr. Stradlingat oneof that great authority’s 
lectures, but I forget now Dr. Stradling’s observations thereon. Lastly, Mr. 
Tuppen assures me that the snake-killer in the New Forest told him that he 
had witnessed adders swallowing their young on many occasions. 
Mr. Joseph Hammond, of Sherbourne, Cocking, near Midhurst, writes on this 
subject as follows : “ One summer evening, when I was on the side of the hills 
shooting young rabbits, I saw a large adder by the stump of an old tree. When 
it caught sight of me it raised its head, making a hissing noise, then opened its 
mouth, and immediately seven young ones, about six inches in length, crawled 
from under the grass, and one by one sprang into the mother’s mouth. Then it 
began to crawl away. I put up my gun and shot it ; then stamped my foot on 
the body of the old dead mother to kill the seven young ones. This you may 
accept for being perfectly true.” 
Mr. James Ede, Bailiff to Mr. G. A. Trist, of Prestwood, Ifield, Crawley, 
