NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
33 
One sunny morning last summer 1 spent half an hour watching these liirds, in 
a most enchanting spot. Immediately in front of me, and at the foot of the hill 
some 6o feet below, lay the River Nar, with the valley opening out towards my 
little village. On the close-cropped turf near the river-side a large number of 
black-headed gulls were basking in the sunshine : some were bathing in the 
stream, or floating idly on its surface, while a single bird soared round and round 
above me till almost lost to sight in the clear blue vault of heaven. Suddenly 
they all rose together, and as I wondered at the cause a heron slowly glided along 
a few feet above where they had been, and proceeded to catch a trout in the river 
for his mid-day meal. The moment he had passed they settled down again and 
I left them undisturbed. 
During the half hour that I watched the gulls that morning the following 
water-loving birds came under my observation : kingfishers, redshanks, green 
sandpipers, mallards, gadwall, moorhens, dabchicks, herons, snipe, all in peace 
and happiness, for they felt they were secure. 
Southacre, Sxvaffham. Edmi;nd Tiios. Dauiiknv. 
January 7, 1905. 
210. Enemies of Bees. — In reference to the paragraph on the above 
subject in your issue of December last, I have frequently seen house-martins 
make a dash at bees, when flying to or from their hives, but I much doubt if they 
really took them, as on coming to close quarters they seemed to think them best 
left alone. I have also seen a spotted flycatcher act in a very similar manner. 
VVe had much more trouble one winter with a great titmouse (Parus major) 
which would alight at the entrance to the hive, and persistently tap till a bee 
made its appearance, when it was instantly killed and carried off. His depreda- 
tions had to be finally stopped by the gun. 
Byjleet, J.vo. Kitzwater. 
January 9, 1905. 
211. Tapping.— Some years ago in an old Dorset farmhou.se I used often 
to notice the “death-watch” tapping behind the fans on the mantelpiece. But 
there was at times a much louder tapping on the oak beam over my bed, which 
was bored, as Mr. Daubeny describes ; at last I managed to pill-box the performer, 
a large weevil, and observed it in the act early next morning. 
Northants Natural History Society. W. A. Shaw. 
212. While what my friend, Mr. Hastie, says regarding the sounds sometimes 
heard to proceed from furniture, the wood of which suddenly expands and con- 
tracts as the result of atmospheric conditions and goes off with a loud bang, is 
quite true, it is a well-known fact that the tapping resembling the ticking of a 
watch, heard in old bedrooms, is caused by a minute beetle, or rather by several 
species of the genus Anobium. Anyone who takes the trouble may observe how 
these insects produce the sound. Raising themselves on their hind legs, very 
much as a woodpecker taps the bark of a tree with its beak, they strike their 
horny heads quickly and with considerable force for such tiny insects, against old 
books, wooden panels, or the plaster of a wall. Thus, to the superstitious, 
“ The solemn death-watch clicks the hour of death.” 
Nor is the Death-watch the only insect which alarms such minds. In our old 
West-country village, where many such-like olden fancies linger to this day, the 
beautiful Death’s-head Hawk-moth (Acherontia atropos), largest of British moths, 
which in its larval state feeds upon the leaves of the potato and the nightshades, 
is similarly looked upon with dread. On account of the skull-like marking on 
its thorax and the weird and plaintive cry it sometimes makes when captured, the 
old people there say that this insect was never made by the Creator, but came into 
existence by the agency of the Devil. 
41, Heath Street, Hampstead. . J. E. Whiting. 
December 9, 1904. 
213. Honey Dew. — I must own to holding the “orthodox view” that 
honey dew is the excretion of aphis, scale, and perhaps some other insects that 
live on the juices of trees and plants. It is deposited on the foliage that is turned 
uppermost, and sometimes overflows the surface on which it has fallen. \ colony 
