SELBORNIANA. 
93 
Apropos of your slug anecdote, let me tell you one of the tadpole. Porriwiggles, 
they call them provincially — a very good name — “ porr ” for the lumpish head 
and “iwiggles” for the tail. Once, when a boy, I put my thumb into a little 
pool that was full of them, and held it there for some time ; they swarmed 
about it and sucked at it, till I took it out, as rough as the finger of an over- 
worked seamstress.’ ” 
“ The Sea-blue Bird of March.” — The Sea-blue bird of March is, in my 
judgment, not the Kingfisher. It does not flit from bush to bush, and is not 
found among larch plantations. Cf. the verse in “ In Memoriam,” xc., i., Anyone 
who carefully notes the colour of the March hedgerows will observe how their 
peculiar colour accentuates the green and yellow and blue of the little blue-tit’s 
suit of sea-blue. Readers of Lord Tennyson, and those who know him personally, 
must have noted how entirely it would fit in with the Laureate’s nice observation 
to speak of the blue-tit as sea-blue. It is veritably the sea-blue bird of March, 
never again so noticeable as in that month as far as colour goes. 
H. D. Rawnsley. 
[The Editorial statement in the April number of Nature Notes was written 
with a distinct remembrance of having heard from Lord Tennyson himself that the 
Kingfisher was the bird meant. To make assurance doubly sure, our President was 
again asked the question, with the result that we can state authoritatively that by 
the “Sea-blue bird of March” was meant the Kingfisher, which Lord Tennyson 
used to notice first in that month of the year by the Lincolnshire rivers. — Eds.] 
Righteous Indignation. — The Rev. H. D. Rawnsley writes later on : — 
“ Will you raise your protest against the needless rooting-up of ferns and flowers 
in our Lake District, and elsewhere, as the tourist season is close upon us. The 
Swiss ‘ Selborne Society ’ prints notices to the effect that the Alpine flowers are 
fast disappearing, and the public are warned that those flowers can be far better 
propagated from seed than from root, and they are invited to go to the Alpine 
Gardens at Zurich and obtain what they want. Two other notes of alarm please 
sound. One against the needless cutting of names on trees. The Knight Wood 
Oak — the King of the New Forest- — is likely to be destroyed by the pernicious 
practice of taking away small bits of the bark. I counted last week 230 new 
cuttings at the rind of this remarkable tree’s stem. The other note we need 
sounding again, is against wanton destruction of rare birds. Last week, whilst 
lunching with Lord Tennyson at Freshwater, I heard the news brought in that 
a kite, a buzzard, and ffhoopoe had been shot in the island. I need not say 
that very strong indignation was expressed. As good luck would have it, two 
members of your Society (vice-presidents) were present, and are able to bear 
witness both to the evil news, and also to the way in which your president was 
distressed by these barbarous and shortsighted acts of butchery among our 
feathered visitants. When shall we learn to entertain angels unawares? ” 
Birds’ Sense of Time. — It has often been said that birds cannot count 
further than five, since the well-worn story of the rooks and the five men with their 
guns. Has their sense of time ever been tested ? We caught last year a young 
and helpless blackbird on our lawn, and to protect it from cats hung it up in a cage 
in my balcony. It could not feed itself, and beat itself against the wires till its 
face was bloody, to our great perplexity and pain. However, in a very short time 
the parent blackbirds found it out, and began feeding it through the bars. By a 
careful adaptation of mirrors we were able to watch them easily, though the birds 
were very wild. The punctuality of the parents was most remarkable, for every 
ten minutes , as the clock-hands pointed, one or other blackbird came back with 
worm or crumb or grub — how obtained, and at what cost of labour and toil, 
with such strict regularity is a marvel to me ; but this happened for several con- 
secutive days, till the young one was better fledged and ceased to sit all day with 
his mouth open, so that we judged him fit to go abroad. We scattered some 
bread crumbs about the cage, to give the parents a little rest, and they were in- 
telligent enough to take the hint and poke them through the wires when they 
thought themselves unobserved, though the young blackbird had not a notion of 
picking them up when placed in his cage. At last we let him fly, and for several 
