NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
177 
walk up to one of the old ones uttering an impatient squeak and opening a perfect 
cavern of a beak, in which the parent would deposit some tit-bit. On one 
occasion, I saw a gull swoop down on a rook, one of the young ones I think, till 
he dropped the morsel he was carrying off, to the gull’s advantage. 
Perhaps your correspondent could tell me if she noticed stonechats or 
whinchats among the many birds that were to be seen at Lyme. There was a 
pretty little fellow I constantly saw, with bright russet breast, white choker and 
black cap, a curious jerky flight, much flirting of his tail, and a voice like rattling 
small gravel in a pill box. I do not know the chats well enough to identify 
them. 
Bath. A. Pedder. 
Elephants. — One day, when my brother and I were at the Zoological 
Gardens, we went to feed the elephants with a bag of biscuits. We were amused 
by the way they stretched out their trunks through the bars of the cage to take 
the food, then curled them up to put it in their mouths. We had fed them all but 
one, when I dropped the bag inside the outer rail. What could we do now ? 
Neither we nor the eleph.ants could reach the bag. It still contained enough to 
feed the last elephant, who was eagerly watching us. .Suddenly the animal’s eyes 
brightened with an idea, and, putting his trunk down on a level with the bag of 
biscuits, he blew it towards us, then stretched out his trunk to receive the food. 
Was not he intelligent to know that he could not be fed unless the biscuits were 
restored ? 
Frid. 4 . 
A Strange Nesting-Place.— A wren has selected a strange place for its 
nest, under a galvanized iron roof, in which some boat sails have been hung. It 
has placed it in a fold of the sail and has not been disturbed at present. The bird 
does not seem to mind people looking constantly at the nest, .•\lthough the garden 
offers some excellent places for wrens’ nests, such as trees encircled with ivy, it 
has chosen the sail in preference to them. 
Derby. Arthur Myers. 
Birds in St. James’s Park. — It is interesting to note that the Lesser 
Grebe is having another successful hatching season in St. James’s Park this spring. 
On May 24 I watched a pair with a brood of four youngsters, about two weeks 
old, on the water near Duck Island. I say “on the water,” but that, properly 
speaking, ought only to apply to the juveniles ; the old birds spending the greater 
portion of their time under the water, only staying on the surface just long enough 
to push a small fish down the throat of the nearest of their offspring. Mr. Riley, 
who has charge of all the water-fowl in the Park, told me that there was also a 
brood, only a few days old, doing well, and that second broods might be expected 
later on, until, at the end of the season, there would be, perhaps, as many as 
twenty of these interesting little birds on the lake. But although there appears 
to be plenty of room, and, undoubtedly, a good supply of food for all, in the 
shape of small fish, only three, or, at the most, four pairs will return in the 
following spring to breed. Sometimes an odd bird or two will pay a pop visit 
to the Park between times, but, roughly speaking, they may be said to seek 
pastures new towards the end of the autumn, until the nesting-time draws near 
again. Once during this spring I saw a fine male, in full colour, on the Battersea 
Park lake, but I feel sure that they do not breed there as yet ; although the 
conditions are practically the same as in St. James’s, and they would probably 
receive the same protection. The two pairs of pinioned herring gulls in the latter 
Park regularly nest and rear young, and by the end of May, this year, both hens 
had been sitting for some time, each on three eggs, in a small enclosure where 
they are confined, during the duck-breeding season, for obvious reasons. After- 
wards they and their young will have the run of the whole place, but not until 
there are no eggs or ducklings to tempt them from the paths of virtue. The tame 
black-headed gulls have, with one exception, been destroyed by cats, and the 
wild ones, so numerous in the hard weather, have, to my great disappointment, 
all departed to their regular breeding haunts. I still have hopes that in the future 
one or two pairs of these graceful birds, who so regularly spend their winters in 
London, will stay behind to nest, and become the progenitors of a race of gulls as 
