I/O 
NATURE NOTES 
immensely to m.y domestic comfort and perhaps safety. There 
is something very sg.tisfactory, also, in killing an aggressive and 
persistent fly, notably a blue-bottle fly, which has been buzzing 
about your head either playfully or maliciously for perhaps a 
quarter of an hour. 
Flies do not seem to dislike travelling, even across the 
seas — not like birds on the wing, but comfortably settled in 
and about the cooking places, dining saloons, &c., of ships and 
steamers going from one port to another. Thus English flies 
may disembark at various ports between England and India 
and vice versa, or they may go backwards and forwards if it so 
pleases them. In short, they seem to do almost whatever they 
like, and doubtless their small size and apparent insignificance 
has proved their chief protection. “ It is only a poor fly ! ” one 
often hears exclaimed, but when considered as it should be, it 
is an unmitigated nuisance and a dangerous pest. We should 
at least do our best to keep our homes clear of them, although 
we cannot exterminate them altogether. 
A. G. Yaldwyn, 
Montreux, October 26, igoi. Lt. -Colonel, D.S.O. 
SQUIRRELS VIEWED AND INTERVIEWED. 
I P a few of us this opening year of the new century will 
be memorable for its fine mornings. It is a long time 
since the sun was so busy before breakfast. We have 
had nearly two hundred and fifty clear, sunshiny 
mornings since the beginning of January. About thirty of these 
have collapsed before ten o’clock ; but the rest have lived on 
into brilliant dayhood, and forced the year’s recorded hours of 
sunshine many degrees above the average. 
It would not be easy to express in exact terms the effect of 
all this upon the sum-total of the year’s life ; though I think it 
may be safely said that the joy of living has been greatly 
increased. Smiling faces are always plentiful on bright, warm 
days ; but perhaps the most convincing evidence of the sun’s 
joy-producing power comes from our English woods and hedge- 
rows, which this year have simply teemed with joyous life. But 
where are these squirrels ? 
In the spring of the present year I read a delightful little 
volume, “Billy and Hans,” by the late Mr. W. J. Stillman, 
and at the time, much as I loved the squirrel, I thought Mr. 
Stillman rather exaggerated the little fellow’s merits. Since 
then, however, I have seen the pretty creature so often and 
under such attractive conditions, that my love for him has 
deepened, and I have become a staunch disciple of Billy’s kind 
master, ^^’ithin five miles of the Crystal Palace, and about 
