NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
57 
ground for wild birds than the West End parks. Many species only occasionally 
to be seen in Kensington Gardens, stay all the summer in battersea I’ark, and in 
some instances breed there, such as the reed warbler. Both the whitethroats, 
particularly the lesser, can generally be seen and heard as well as the willow 
warbler, while a summer never passes without the chilf-chafi', blackcap, garden 
sedge, and more rarely the wood warbler, putting in an occasional appeaiiincc. 
If the pied wagtail does not breed there, and I have never seen newly fledged 
youngsters, it is to be seen off and on at all seasons down by the river .shore 
adjoining the park. Several years ago I lielieve it bred near the Magazine in 
Hyde Bark, because for several mornings I saw a pair feeding a young brood able 
to fly, in that vicinity. Redstarts are not often to be seen at Battersea, and I have 
only noticed a solitary hen bird on one or two occasions, and curiously enough, all 
those I have seen in the West End parks have been cocks. With regard to the 
dabchicks in St. James’s Bark, a keeper told me he did not think they were really 
wild ; still, the fact that they disappear for the greater part of the winter seems 
to point to the conclusion that they .are. I once saw a black-headed gull making 
repeated stoops at one in St. James’s Bark, with very indifferent success from the 
dabchick’s well-known diving powers. The attack was quite inexplicable to me, 
but a friend of mine told me he saw one of these gulls recently in the same place 
catch a sparrow and literally tear it to pieces. It is curious to note how the gulls 
now in St. James’s Bark (Feb. 8) keep to that part of the lake lying between the 
bridge and the Horse Guards, and I have observed the same partiality in previous 
years. Not a gull is to be seen on the other half of the water, and there the ducks 
reign supreme to their great content. Visits of the cuckoo to London must 
always remain doubtful unless the bird itself happens to be seen by some compe- 
tent observer. I thought I heard it one May morning in Battersea Bark, and on 
asking a gardener working close by whether he considered it genuine he replied, 
“ Oh, yes, it has been about here all the week, and last year it had a nest here ! ” 
I never consulted that authority again. Greenfinches are often numerous, and I 
should never be surprised to find it breeding in the park. The lesser redpoll, 
linnet, goldcrest, tern, and in hard weather the redwing are only occasional 
visitors. 
W. N. Rushen. 
Blindness in Horses. — A few weeks ago a cab proprietor in Bristol, whom 
I have known and employed for years, told me of a blind horse in his possession 
that had always a thick coat of hair in summer and a thin one in winter, and said 
this was no exceptional thing, for he had had another blind horse showing the 
same peculiarity. I have since tried to obtain confirmation of what seemed to 
me a remarkable phenomenon, telling all my friends about it. One of them 
remarked, “Oh ! that is an Australian horse, he has not yet got acclimatized.” 
But a few days ago I was sitting beside the driver of the Dartmouth and Kings- 
bridge coach, and he said at once, “ We had a blind horse in our stable that I 
well remember, and had to clip him two or three times in the summer time.” He 
further added, that it is necessary that the animal be born blind ; it is not sufficient 
that he become so from an accident. He also said that his horse was not quite blind, 
but could distinguish a hand waved in front of his eyes. In this, however, he may 
have been mistaken, for we know how the other senses of blind individuals 
become sharpened, as instanced in the case of a man I was recently conversing 
with, that had become blind from lifting heavy weights, who, though stone-blind, 
can tell as he walks along the pavement when he is drawing near to a lamp-post. 
How the connection between blindness in animals and an abnormal state of 
the covering of their bodies is to be explained I cannot tell. Perhaps some of 
your readers can throw light on the subject. 
Slaplon, Kingsbridge. Giles A. Daubeny. 
Bats (p. 227). — The account of the bat’s slow awakening reminded me of 
some dormice I kept long ago. During the winter I kept them too warm to allow 
prolonged hibernation. When wishing to wake them I held the little, cold, stiff 
ball in my hands, and exactly the same process of re-animation took place as that 
described in the case of the bats. 
E. G. W. 
