io6 
NATURE NOTES 
bank within a few feet of those rowing or fishing, and their onl}' 
enemies are the cats, which attracted by their numbers, leave the 
cottages for the river and stalk them, while the old water-hens 
in vain try to get their too tame young safe on to the water 
again. 
Kingfishers have increased fast and Mr. Cornish, during a 
row of ten miles down the river, saw more than twenty. Young 
swallows sit fearlessly on the dead willow boughs to be fed by 
their parents, reed-buntings and sedge-warblers scarcely move 
when the oar dips near them, and even the water-rats show no 
signs of fear, as a result, also, of the total prohibition of 
shooting. 
The herons from Richmond Park have extended their usual 
nightly fishing ground, which formerly ended at Kew Bridge, 
four miles further down the river, almost to Hammersmith 
Bridge, and in place of coming late at night, under cover of 
darkness, have made a practice of flying down at dusk, and 
pitching on the edge of Chiswick Eyot. Their regular appear- 
ance led to various inquiries as to the nature of the “ big birds 
like geese ” which flew down the river and made a noise in the 
evening Their footprints have been found on the mud 
opposite a creek in Hammersmith, round which is one of the 
most crowded quarters of the poorer folk of West London. The 
birds had been fishing within ten yards of the houses, which 
at this point are largely inhabited by organ-grinders and vendors 
of ice-creams, callings which do not promote quiet and solitude 
in the immediate neighbourhood. 
This same matter of the relations of men and animals is the 
subject, also, of an interesting article in the Spectator. The 
writer remarks that birds are wonderfully quick judges of in- 
tentions, and gives numerous instances in point. But the cases 
of mammals noticed by him are perhaps even more striking. 
Certain bears in the Yellowstone Park come to the hotel 
rubbish-heaps to be fed with kitchen waste, and allow ladies 
to photograph them ; and the squirrels of the New York Central 
park are as familiar as are our London sparrows. Some corre- 
spondents of the Spectator have pointed this out recently as 
happening in the case of the Phoenix Park in Dublin, where 
the deer feed undisturbed between lines of soldiers firing blank 
cartridges, and the crowd gazing at them, and can hardly be 
driven off by the mounted men sent to make them “ move on.” 
One will agree with the writer that these things offer a 
peculiarly pleasing prospect for our future town life and urban 
or half-urban parks. Results of the same kind may be abso- 
lutely counted upon whenever the creatures are not shot or 
molested . — Daily Netvs. 
P)UTTEKrLiEs IN Batteksea Park. — Last year the London 
County Council obtained from our correspondent, the Rev. E. T. 
Daubeny, and other sources, nearly nine thousand larvae — most 
