BILLY. 
33 
A chaffinch took up his abode in Lincoln’s Inn Fields about 
May 13. He could be constantly heard singing till the middle 
of June, but I never saw a hen chaffinch or anything to indicate 
that the bird nested there. 
On June 5 a yellowhammer was singing by the north side of 
the bridge over the Serpentine; the only other bird of this species 
which I have ever seen wild in London was in Lincoln’s Inn on 
April I, 1889 (see Nature Notes, 1891, p. 124). Near this 
bridge I observed two swifts on May 16, and there were several 
to be seen during .August in the same neighbourhood. 
A large colony of starlings roosted throughout the summer in 
the tall trees by the enclosure where the peacocks are kept. In 
•\ugust — owing no doubt to the addition of young birds — the 
numbers were greatly increased, and there must have been about 
a thousand birds there every night. Towards the end of August 
I noticed a good many sand martins and swallows over the Long 
Water, and after my return from my holiday early in October 
there were still a few swallows about. 
On October 30 a dabchick was diving in the Long Water 
near the bridge. This is a very rare sight now, although these 
birds still appear in St James’s Park every summer. A meadow 
pipit in Hyde Park on October 31 reminded me that this species 
does not seem to visit London nearly as often, nor in such large 
numbers, as was formerly the case. 
There was a fine adult great black-backed gull over the 
Thames opposite the Temple Gardens on Guy Fawkes Day, with 
some herring and black-headed gulls. This was my last obser- 
vation in 1895 worthy of mention. 
A. Holte Macpherson. 
‘■BILLY.” 
OME years ago, when leaving our old home in the 
country, we had to part with all our pets, amongst 
others some call-ducks, a pair of which we gave to a 
friend. The son of this pair is the hero of this 
little history. He was the only survivor of some that were 
hatched when my friend was abroad, and he received the name 
of “ Billy ” from those who had charge of him. 
Billy was brought up by a white Cochin-China hen, who no 
doubt felt all the tenderness for him an only child inspires ; and 
he returned his foster-mother’s love with all his little heart. He 
would never leave her, and regularly, as breakfast and supper 
time came round, he was to be seen in the rear of the struggling 
mass of fowls, slyly pecking the legs of all the lordly beaux and 
chuckling dames of the yard, and so driving them away to 
make room for his hen. 
