54 
NATURE NOTES 
being a diminutive of the Latin ‘ sciurus,’ which is simply Greek Latinised. The 
Greeks called the squirrel ‘ shady tail ’ just as they called the cat ‘ wavy tail ’ — 
ailouros.” 
G. S. Boulger. 
216. Rooks and Potatoes.— All birds of the crow tribe, rooks espe- 
cially, e.xhibit a tendency towards winter — like squirrels and some other 
animals — to lay up a store of provisions for their sustenance against a season of 
scarcity. While jackdaws select holes of trees, and old buildings to store away 
such provisions, rooks convey them away to their rookeries. There in last 
season’s nests they deposit them. Should the weather set in with unusual severity 
when the rooks are unable to obtain their natural insect food from the hard, 
frozen ground, they visit their emergency larder, and partly subsist upon the 
stored up provisions. Should, however, the winter be mild, they leave their 
stores untouched. Towards spr’ng-time, when they begin thinking about setting 
their houses in order, they visit their rookeries, and when rebuilding their nests, 
throw out the unused store. Thus it is we often find an accumulation of acorns, 
potatoes and what not, on the ground under their nests. 
41, Heath Street, Hampstead. James E. Whiting. 
217. Owls. — There are more owls here than in any spot with which I am 
acquainted. Landlords, tenants, farmers and even gamekeepers leave them 
alone, and the village lad dare not trespass in search of eggs where every piece 
of land is preserved. I see or hear barn and brown owls almost every evening. 
The long-eared owl occurs here, a remark which also holds good in the case of 
the migratory short-eared owl. Besides these four kinds there are two or three 
pairs of little owls in a fir plantation close to Narlord Hall, where all owls are 
safe. 
Southacre, Swaffham, Edmund Thos. Dauheny. 
February, 1 905. 
218. Grouse in East Anglia. — A cock red grouse has recently l>een 
shot near Redgrave, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, and had probably 
strayed from Elveden, where some of these birds have of late years been intro- 
duced. A friend writes to say a pack of them was seen between Mildenhall and 
Elveden last summer. Years ago some were turned down at Riddlesworth by 
a former owner of tbe estate. This proved a failure, for the heather there is very 
poor and stunted. The Eastern Counties are not favourable to red grouse, the 
heather never making long green shoots, as in Scotland, and a plentiful supply 
of this food is with them a prime necessity. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
219. Death-watch. — With reference to the death-watch question, will you 
allow me to say that the noise that I heard repeatedly years ago was exactly like 
the sharp, loud licking of a watch, and it was rather rapid while it lasted. It was 
similar to the noise produced by the fire-brick at the back of the stove when it 
is cooling, and the sounds were regular and distinct in their beats. The house 
was then new and the furniture all new. I generally heard it when in bed, in 
the deep stillness of the night, and without a fire. 
The noise made by weevils is slower, and is like a biting or nipping sound. 
They do not make the noise by knocking their heads against a imst. They have 
got more sense than that. The sound is made by the biting of their very forcible 
mandibles at the end of their long proboscis. They will bile into the hardest 
vegetable substance. The ordinary grain weevil bites into the hardest and most 
flinty grain. I do not think that it is a native of this country. When granaries 
are infested by them I believe the weevils were originally imported in cargoes of 
foreign grain, especially of hard Indian wheat. When they once get into 
granaries, they will breed generation after generation in a most rapid manner as 
long as they have any of their food to live on, and it is most difficult to get rid 
of them, for they hide themselves and hibernate in the cold weather. 
Hampstead, Peter IIastie. 
February 15, 1905. 
220. Honcydew. — If “ honeydew ” is the product of aphides, how is it 
that it is never seen except after a day or two of an extraordinarily hot sunshine? 
