NATURE NOTES 
1 16 
birds were silent. The nightingale I first heard at midnight March 30, a bitte 
cold night. They are plentiful in this neighbourhood this season. 
S7, Shakespeare Street, Stratford-on-Avon. F. G. Savage. 
May 9, 1902. 
Curlew. — The following incidents were told me by my brother, who has a 
farm in Breconshire, the hills round which are a great haunt of the curlew from. 
March to August. I write it in his words : “ Some years ago I asked my shepherd 
to get me a curlew’s egg, and although there were a lot of birds about he never 
could find a nest ; but at last he came on one with three eggs in it. As he was 
going on his rounds he did not take the eggs then, but marked the place and 
came back for them in about an hour, but they had gone, and he declared to me 
that the old bird took them away. This I doubted, till on April 28 in this year, 
I myself found a nest containing three eggs, two of which I took, and carefully 
marked the place. About half an hour later I passed it again : the curlew fled 
away from the nest and the egg was still there ; but when on May i I visited 
the nest, there was no egg to be found, though I came upon the nest quite easily. 
It is very unlikely that any one would have passed the nest, and I cannot but 
think my shepherd’s theory must be correct.” 
Could any of the readers of Nature Notes throw any light on the subject? 
A. C. Green. 
Surgical Skill in Birds. — A correspondent sends us the following extract 
from \.\\e Bideford IVeekly Gazette, with a very natural request for corroboration or 
authoritative denial; “Some interesting observations concerning the surgical 
treatment of wounds by birds were recently made by a Swiss naturalist. He 
observed that the snipe had often been observed making with its beak and feathers 
a very creditable dressing of a wound. It had even been known to secure a 
broken limb by means of a stout ligature. The most interesting example was that 
of a snipe, both of whose legs he had unfortunately broken by a misdirected shot. 
He only recovered it on the following day, when he found that the poor bird had 
contrived to apply dressings of down from other parts of its body fastened by 
congealed blood, and a sort of splint of interwoven feathers to both limbs. 
In a case recorded by another naturalist a snipe which was observed to fly away 
with a broken leg was subsequently found to have forced the fragments into a 
parallel position — the upper fragment reaching to the leg joint — and they were 
secured there by means of a strong band of feathers and moss intermingled.” 
Sparrow. — I am glad to see in this month’s number that Mr. Hannett has 
a word in favour of the sparrow. I have kept tame sparrows for the past twenty- 
two years, and know from experience that house flies cannot exist where the 
good little birds live. I have seen those in the garden killing the common black 
beetle. 
too, War^uick Gardens, W. Edith J. Hipkins. 
May 2, 1902. 
Birds and Berries. — From observations extending over several winters, 1 
am of opinion that thru.shes and missel-thrushes only feed on the berries of the 
holly when hard pressed by hunger. I took particular notice this last winter 
of two fine large holly trees which were covered with large berries. During the 
spells of hard weather we have had, I have seen as many as eight thrushes 
and a fieldfare feeding on them at one time[; but as soon as the weather got milder 
not a thrush could be seen, and the trees are now bearing quite a large quantity 
of berries, which I do not think would be the case if the birds eat them as an 
ordinary article of food. F. G. Savage. 
Black Woodpecker. — Three or four years ago I was informed of the 
occurrence of this bird, and wrote to a friend who lived near where it had been 
seen, to put him on the look-out. This friend and his wife are reliable and 
enthusiastic ornithologists, and their son is sixteen years of age. I have just 
received the following letter from him : — 
“ On the 1 2th of this month my wife and Dick were biking from . They were 
between the two entrances to , when they saw a bird flying in the undulating 
woodpecker way across the road : it was almost immediately followed by two 
others. The birds were black. One of them called, and Dick remarked, ‘ What a 
