96 
NATURE NOTES. 
When spring hopes seem to wane, 
I hear the joyful strain — 
A song at night, a song at morn, 
A lesson deep to me is borne, 
Hearing “cheerily, 
Cheer up, cheer up ; 
Cheerily, cheerily, 
Cheer up.” 
The lines have no name attached to them, but are taken from Nehrlinfs North 
American Birds , now being published in parts by Wesley and Son. 
The Rev. A. Rawson calls attention to the following extract from White’s 
Natural History of Selborne : — “ A friend remarks that many of his owls hoot in 
B flat, but that one went almost below' A. The pipe he tried their notes by was 
a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords — 
it was the common London pitch. A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a 
nice ear, remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in 
G flat or F sharp, in B flat and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the 
one in A flat and the other in B flat. 
“ Query : Do these different notes proceed from different species, or only from 
various individuals?” — From quarto edition of 1813, p. 14. 
Miss Agnes Martelli sends the following letter from Mr. John James Carey, of 
Ronceval, Guernsey : — “ One night last year I noticed the note of the cuckoo 
repeated several times. Once I counted 1 18, and thought this rather unusual, but 
this year the call far exceeded this number. On the night of the 8th May, a 
lovely moonlight, a cuckoo, perched on a tree opposite my window, awoke me by 
constant calls. This was at 1.30 a.m. He ran on an uninterrupted note of 415 
times, then ceased for a short time, and, having taken breath, commenced again. 
I counted up to 600, then, fearing that I might forget the hundreds, I produced 
paper and pencil, dotting down every hundred. My friend ran up to 2,683, net 
including the 415 calls. There were short intervals of a few seconds, as if wanting 
breath, and once or twice he called a single ‘cook,’ but after two hours (for it 
was 3. 30), I thought I had satisfied my mind on the vocal powers of this bird, and 
feeling very sleepy I left him still going on.” 
Albino Birds. — Mr. W. G. Wheatcroft, Secretary of the Bath Branch, 
writes : — My attention has recently been called to this subject by a lady from 
Norfolk. Miss Mildred Edwards, of Hardingham Hall, in a letter to my wife of 
the 14th inst., observes: — “It may interest you.to hear that we have just had 
brought us from one of our plantations an entirely white rook. It had been 
evidently mobbed by the others. It is extremely ugly, has white legs and blue 
eyes, the pupils having a ghastly pinkish tinge in some lights.” Selbornians will 
doubtless call to mind the following passage from The Natural History of Selborne : 
— “A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A 
booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and 
destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have 
preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against 
the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws 
were milk-white. I have come across a goodly number of albinos among plants, but 
only one or two in the animal world.” 
On this subject Mr. T. G. Ward, of Leighton Buzzard, sends the following 
notes of albino birds and mammals seen at North Marston : — 
“On the nth of August, 1887, a snow-white specimen of the yellow wagtail 
was observed by a friend of mine. The next morning he saw it again, and ad- 
vanced within a few yards of it before it flew away. Its flight and chirrup were 
quite normal. Several white starlings have been observed at various times by 
different persons. White sparrows have also been taken in this district. In the 
w inter of 1S85, a sparrow was caught in a trap with the crown of its head pure 
white, and one was seen on the 6th of November, and again on the 18th, with 
its back and tail quite white. I have been told by a person of good authority 
that he saw' a white blackbird in his orchard a few years ago. One morning as I 
was out for a walk I saw a pure w'hite stoat ; this was in the winter-time. White 
rabbits have been shot in this neighbourhood.” 
