NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
17 
has seen the brown variety frequenting hedges in Wicklow. Perhaps Charles 
Darwin intended a playful allusion to St. Patrick’s famous banishment of reptiles 
from this country. 
Maiahide. A. L. Massy. 
The Kingfisher. — In Country Life for November 16, E. K. R. says : 
“ As the weather gets colder the small fish on which the kingfisher feeds with- 
draw from the ditches and shallows, and the kingfisher is obliged to seek the 
main stream, and each day he works nearer to its mouth. Sometimes his move- 
ments are hurried by frost, which closes the upper waters first ; but sooner or 
later almost all the kingfishers of a river will, in hard weather, be found collected 
near its mouth, where food is still to be found in the unfrozen brackish water. 
It is then, alas, that the millinery trade is easily supplied with kingfishers’ skins, 
for the birds have a fatal habit of flying under a bridge instead of over it, and 
nothing is easier than to cover the archway with a fine silk net and then drive all 
the kingfishers up stream towards it. The facility of this wholesale slaughter, 
combined with the bird’s great beauty, ought to place the kingfisher in the 
category of British birds that deserve to be protected by severe penalties at all 
seasons of the year everywhere.” 
Jackdaw. — This morning I saw a jackdaw fly over a wall from a private 
house as if it were a tame one. I wondered if it were a pet, as it flew back 
again. On returning, however, I saw it in the same road. It seemed quite 
tame and let me come close to it, then I noticed it trying to feed on something on 
the ground, and saw the shape of its bill, which was crossed at the tips with a 
space between the mandible at the base and middle so that it could not get hold 
of its food. The bird was evidently starved. Now I want to know how it could 
have lived from May to December, through two periods of severe weather, and 
how this formation of the bill came about. It is suggested to me that the bill 
was strained in eating something hard when it was young. 
Moorcroft, Hillingdon, Middlesex. C. J. Maurice. 
December 2 , 1901. 
The Song of Birds. — It is generally thought that the song of birds is the 
language of love and defiance, and is connected with sexual passion. How is it 
then that the wren and the robin sing all the year through ? They charm us 
when the songsters of the sun are dumb. Perhaps some one will express his 
opinions on the subject. 
Moor croft, Hillingdon, Middlesex. C. J. Maurice. 
December 2, 1901. 
A Black and White Blackbird. — We have a tame hen blackbird with 
a white throat that is constantly on our lawn. For three winters she has come to 
the window to be fed. One winter when there was snow upon the ground she 
came into the house several times through the open window. She always builds 
in some ivy on a wall in the garden ; but we see very little of her until the 
weather becomes cold, then she always seems at hand. This autumn I noticed 
she had a white feather come in her wing and some white feathers above her 
eyes. She is very spiteful to other birds, and will not allow them to come too 
near the windows, but chases them off in every direction. We often put down 
bread for her ; it is most funny to see how she guards it. After eating as much 
as she can she sits near hopping backwards and forwards constantly and making 
darts at any other birds that venture near. 
There is a large Portugal laurel on the lawn, only a few yards from the 
window, which is generally covered in the autumn with berries ; and the blackbirds 
seem to devour them with great eagerness. Two years ago was noticed a beauti- 
ful hawfinch close to this tree, we saw him two days in the same week nearly in 
the same spot. We saw one again last week under this Portugal laurel. No one 
seems to have seen one in the immediate neighbourhood besides ourselves. 
Parnell Jones. 
Owls at Mortlake. — Some time ago several old trees growing by the path 
in Kew meadows, Mortlake, were felled. During the process of cutting down 
these trees, a large white owl came out of one of them, and flew away over 
Mortlake Road, towards Sheen. In this tree were found afterwards, bones of 
pigeons, remains of mice, &c. A few days ago I mentioned the matter of the 
