NATURE NOTES 
136 
Great Tits. For some days previously a bird, with the notes and appearance of 
whicli I was unfamiliar, had been very busy in the tree apparently in quest of 
caterpillars. Early on the morning of the 25 th, hearing the note again, I saw this 
bird enter the bo.K and immediately afterwards the female arrived, carrying nesting 
material, and forthwith building operations went on merrily. The fact of the box 
being within two yards of the window, enabled me to closely observe the colour, 
markings and movements of the pair, and it was only after a reference to 
“Bewick’s Birds,” I found they were Pied Flycatchers. Bewick says: “This 
bird is nowhere common ; it is said to be most plentiful in Yorkshire, Lancashire, 
and Derbyshire,” and, as he remarks, the white spot on the forehead is wanting 
in the female. As the entrance-hole in the box was only made large enough for 
tits, it is evidently rather a tight fit, and it is very amusing to watch the struggles 
of the bird with leaves, pieces of straw, &c. , which are too large to pass through 
the hole. Sometimes the difficulty is overcome by withdrawing to a branch about 
two yards away, straight opposite the hole, and then taking a flying shot, by 
which means the object is forced through, bird and all. The male seems to take 
no part in the work, beyond fussing in and out of the box, and getting very much 
in the way. So I am the proud possessor (for the time being) of a pair of Pied 
P'lycatchers, and I hope the safe rearing of the prospective family may do some- 
thing towards decreasing the rarity of these beautiful and interesting little birds. 
Since writing the above one of the Great Tits has appeared on the scene, and 
has been summarily chased off the premises by the Flycatchers. I have, theie- 
fore, been obliged to erect another box near by, to avoid complications. 
W. 
261. Animals and Plants this May.— The long spell of cold, dry- 
winds has told severely on many animals and plants. Gamekeepers say that 
young pheasants are dying in all directions. A brood of young wild-ducks are 
nearly all dead. Young chicken succumb day- after day-. The swallow tribe are 
sufferers. Sand-martins in a chalk-pit here are decreasing in numbers, and many 
are so weak as to be hardly able to fly. Owing to lack of insect food, many 
birds are driven to all sorts of shifts to provide for themselves and their families. 
Jackdaws are more persevering than usual in robbing little birds’ nests. I have 
just witnessed a jackdaw take an unfledged thrush from a nest in a thick roadside 
hedge. His unwelcome visits are sure to be repeated till the whole brood is 
gone. In a garden near is a holly tree profusely covered with last year’s red 
berries. Missel thrushes had taken to eating these at the end of May. Bees 
have been kept at home by the cold, thus losing many precious hours of their 
short honey harvest. On May 23 potatoes and French beans were cut down by- 
frost ; and even broad beans, just coming into flower, lay flat upon the ground. 
Much of the beauty of the foliage is ruined for the year ; trees and flowers look 
faint and tired in the cold, parching blasts, and the sickly colour of many crops 
can be seen with half an eye. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
262. Fertilisation of the Primrose. — I have not been a disciple of 
Darwin’s and a life-long observer of natural objects without being fully aware 
of the “important deductions” that will be drawn if it becomes an established 
fact that the primrose is “beetle-fertilised,” and am so impressed with the way- 
ordinary insect visitors of our spring flowers neglect the primrose as to feel sure 
that its fertilisation is almost wholly caused by other and smaller insects. During 
the last two springs I have kept this flower under special observation at all 
sorts of odd times, including evening and early- night. No bees or flies with 
long probo.scis have been seen by me visiting it by day, and no noctum or thick- 
bodied moths by night. This is corroborated by two members of my family 
who have assisted in the matter. The visits, therefore, of these insects seem to 
me to be so rare that if its fertilisation depended upon them the primrose would 
soon cease to exist. 
In early spring only a few kinds of thick-bodied moths visit flowers, some 
of which are very attractive to them. One has only- to go to sallow bloom at 
night to find the moths of the neighbourhood at the feast. In the daytime it 
is much the same. Bees, flies and other insects are busy on the sallow and 
willow bloom, while the primrose on the ground beneath is unnoticed by them. 
