NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
213 
have come down. The principal one was in the same place as I saw one twelve 
years ago, but this time the mass of snow is enormous, many thousands of tons. 
A remarkable thing about this avalanche is that the trees above it do not appear 
to have been in the least damaged. 
Montreux, Giles A. Daubeny. 
April 12, 1901. 
Gunners or Wraiths ? — The paragraph with this heading, sent me from 
a local paper of last autumn, has been copied by several London daily papers, 
in one of which a writer replies to it, pointing out that the birds had always been 
in the habit of flying over the house, and that they certainly have not disappeared. 
The story would seem, therefore, to be imaginative. — El). N. N. 
Martins and Swallows. — A great deal has been written on the scarcity 
of these birds during the past season. My observations are that we have not had 
the usual quantity of swallows, and that house-martins have been quite as 
numerous as last year. There have been thirty-two nests of martins built or 
occupied, and about ten of the number have been occupied by house-sparrows, 
in addition to the usual boxes fixed under the eaves of buildings, where they can 
be robbed or left according to inclination. None have been robbed this season. 
J. IIlAM. 
A Black BullUnch. — In a letter dated March 30, 1768, the Rev. Gilbert 
White mentions a case of a bullfinch turning black after four years’ confinement 
in a cage. Last autumn I caught one in the garden, and it has moulted out as 
black as a crow this season, except a few white feathers in each wing. Too much 
hemp-seed causes this transformation, although its seed was about equal parts of 
hemp and canary seed with plenty of green food. 
J. Hiam. 
Strange Nesting Places. — Having read Rev. A. F. Curtis’s interesting 
note on the above, I thought the following finds I have made might interest your 
readers. The great tit seems fond of selecting strange places for nesting. I once 
found its nest in the barrel of a disused pump, the birds using the spout for ingress 
and egress; when I took the cap of the pump oft' I found the nest contained six 
fledglings crouching together, doubtless alarmed at seeing their roof disappear 
so suddenly. At another time I found its nest in a small boat which had not been 
used for a long time, and was lying on the side of a lake. The boat had a covered 
deck after the fashion of a canoe, and in the bow a square place was formed 
between decks into which a pair of great tits had found their way through a hole, 
and built a nest 17 inches long, loj inches wide, and 2^ thick, of coarse moss with 
a feather-lined nest cup of 2 inches in diameter at one end, and deposited seven 
eggs. Another nest of these birds was built on the top of an old squirrel’s dray 
up a high tree, and can now be seen in the Hastings Museum. 
I have several times found robins’ nests under glass shades placed upon graves 
in our cemetery. Spotted flycatchers often select the carvings on monuments for 
nesting places here. I found one of their nests this year with a cuckoo’s egg in 
it, built upon a metal wreath that had been tied on the front of a headstone, which 
was standing quite close to a frequented pathway. 
I saw a spotted flycatcher on the 3rd of this month, hawking flies from the 
roof of the cemetery chapel. Is not this late for it to be here ? 
St. Helen's, near Hastings, Sussex, Walter Field. 
October 5, igoi. 
Skylarks. — I was pleased to read what Mr. W. Percival Westell had to say 
about the skylark, and doubtless he will be glad to hear that there has been a 
considerable increase in their numbers in our locality this year. Has Mr. Westell 
ever noticed this bird mimicking or introducing into its song the cry of the ring 
dotterel ? This it frequently does in the Romney Marshes. 
St. Helen’s, near Hastings, Sussex, Walter Field. 
October 5, 1901. 
Birds and Insect Food. — The necessity of insect food, even togranivorous 
birds, is at times very noticeable, for to a great extent it provides the moisture 
