NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
157 
It was specially interesting to see how each parent bird took its turn on the nest, 
and more than once I and my children had the opportunity to see the one leav 
and the other return ; and to note the call, by which the one bird seemed to 
intimate to the other that the time for change was come. Each time a bird 
came afresh to the nest a good deal of shuffling took place before settling com- 
fortably down, and this we took to be a process of turning the eggs over, but of 
that I could not be certain. In due time a brood of seven was hatched, and 
within a few hours all took to the water, being carefully attended by both patents. 
The nest seemed to have been deserted for some days and then they all returned 
to it one night, and here a sad mishap occurred, which was witne.ssed from the 
bank. One little chick fell off the nest upon its back into the water, and being 
unable to right itself and receiving no parental assistance, so perished. Each 
night now the brood return to the nest to roost, and they nestle under the parent’s 
feathers all night, and it is strange to note how a (resh bed of green leaves and 
grass has been laid upon the nest, as if to make all clean and sweet for their 
reception. They are now more than ten days old and doing well. The piece 
of water is encloseil within the grounds of a private house, which is now used for 
the residence of some aged men who have .seen belter days, and some of them have 
sat for hours watching these birds and their little family, and I think you will 
agree with me that it is not often that such admirable opportunities occur to note 
the home life of these shy birds within the limits of the London Postal District. 
We have also another pretty bird home to watch quite clo>e at hand, and that is 
the snug nest built by a pair of robins inside an old water can that hangs upon a 
birch tree bough in our garden ground. Some weeks ago I hung up the can and 
hoped that it micht prove, as it has done, a tempting home. Only on .Saturday, 
loo, we saw a diligent little creeper examining carefully the bark of an old accacia 
hard by our dining room window, and perhaps we may have the delight to see 
them build behind the bark that here and there gapes open on the trunk. Two 
years ago a nest was begun in this same tree, but was molested by some passer-by 
on the road and never finished. 
Bowes Park, N. A. C. Almack. 
Blindness in Horses (p. 57). — In connection with this I should like to 
mention a somewhat analogous case given by Darwin in his “Origin of Species,” 
p. 107 of the 1894 edition, where he says “What can be more singular than the 
relation in cats between complete whiteness and blue eyes with deafness?” 
Stapton, Kitigsbrid^e. GlI.ES A. Daubeny. 
Partridge carrying Young (vol. v., p. 177). — Darwin apparently did not 
believe in wild birds carrying their young, for at page 197 of the 1894 edition of 
his “ Origin of Species ” we read : “ If the hen gives the danger chuckle, they will 
run (more especially young turkeys) from under her and conceal themselves in 
the surrounding gra-s or thickets; and this is evidently done for the instinctive 
purpose of allowing, as we see in wild ground-birds, their mother to fly away,” a 
rather heartless proceeding on the part of the mother, I think, and not very easy 
to believe. Giles A. Daubeny. 
The Food of the Eagle. — A Swiss hunter has succeeded in taking in the 
Alps the nest of an eagle. There were found, by the side of an eaglet, a hare 
recently killed, twenty-seven feet of chamois, four pigeons’ feet, thirty pheasants’ 
feet, eleven heads of fowls, eighteen heads of grouse, and the remains of a 
quantity of rabbits, maimi ts, squirrels, &c. 
The above, from the ludependanee Beige, is interesting not only as showing 
the food of eagles, but it makes it clear that the chamois, though much reduced 
in numbers, as we know, is by no means extinct in the Alps. 
Slapton, Kingsbridge. Giles A. Daueeny. 
A Winter Cuckoo. — WTiile thanking Miss Corbet for her most interesting 
paper, may I ask an explanation of the words “ Knowing of cases in which birds 
poison their young when unable to set them free.” Is it really meant that 
young birds have been medically examined and poison delected ? If so, what 
was the poi.son ? I hope I shall be forgiven for saying that something more than 
a surmise or inference is required to establish so startling a fact. Mr. Teget- 
