NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 39 
drop a small piece of flesh just torn from its daily allowance. In a moment a 
watchful sparrow had darted down through the bars, past the formidable beak and 
claws, and seizing the coveted morsel bore it off in triumph to a neighbouring tree 
top, where, joined by a crowd of hungry relatives, a beef steak banquet was 
soon in progress. Twice on Sunday, November 7, I had a somewhat cursory 
glimpse through the fog of a common scoter on the river, once near Lambeth, 
and again near the Albert Bridge. I wrote to the Field (November 13), and the 
editor in a footnote remarked that a flock of scoters had located themselves during 
the previous week off Canvey Island at the mouth of the Thames. The fog, and 
absence of traffic on the river, probably misled the bird I saw, causing it to 
wander much higher up than usual. Several greenfinches seen in a Kennington 
garden on December 17 is my last bird item of interest for 1897. 
12, Fentiman Road , S.W. W. Naunton Rushen. 
Hornets. — Having read the very interesting note on hornets (p. 16), per- 
haps I may be allowed to supplement it with a few observations. About fifty years 
ago there was a strong colory of hornets near my home when I was a lad, and 
I remember watching movements similar to those of Mr. Selous’ experience. 
There was a stool of young ash sticks growing in a hedge, and near the surface of 
the bank the hornets, sometimes from half a-dozen to a dozen at a time, fed on the 
bark or took it for nest building, at any rate took off the bark extensively. A few 
years ago I also saw young ash saplings served as described on page 16. A colony 
had just previously been destroyed in a wood on Lord Windsor’s Iiewell estate. 
One of the ash sticks before referred to I had left when the hedge was laid. It is 
now a tree, and at the point attacked by the hornets is now about four and a-half 
feet in circumference and shows by the protuberances, or warts, where the hornets 
attacked it, and caused it to swell. Measured a foot above the attack the tree is 
quite a foot less in measurement with clear bark. I remember this same colony of 
hornets attacked dahlia stems just above the ground level, apparently for the juice 
exuding from the wound. Two hornets’ nests near here I found in hollow willow 
heads this season, and neither were disturbed, I believe. I stood close up to the 
tress several limes to watch their movements on many occasions, and although 
they scrutinised me very closely they never offered to sting, unless molested. 
Astwood Bank, Redditch. J. Hiam. 
Sparrows and Thrushes. — That tricks, especially knavish ones, soon 
spread among sparrows has been curiously exemplified on my lawn ; and the way 
they have been practised on the thrushes has been remarkable indeed. At first, 
as I related in a previous number of Nature Notes, a single sparrow took to 
snatching chafers. This practice continued for three or four days, and was then 
imitated by many others, but with improved tactics. The sparrows soon found 
it unnecessary to follow the thrushes as they searched the turf, but waited till they 
saw them digging, and then rushed up and stole their food. Meanwhile the 
thrushes began to wake up to the fact of being continually robbed, and often tried 
to fight the thieves. This proved useless, for merely keeping out of reach till the 
sparring ceased, two or three of them would surround a thrush, and even snatch 
the chafer from its mouth. Sometimes a thrush would run away or fly a short 
distance with a chafer in its bill, only to be pursued, mobbed and forced to stand 
and deliver. One poor mother was working in the sun with drooping wings for 
two hungry fledglings that dogged her steps. Did she secure a chafer, and they 
run up with open mouths as she turned to give it them, the sparrows ran up too ; 
there was a momentary struggle, a meeting of bills, but it was not her young that 
the mother fed. Thus it was that by the artfulness of a single bird a system of 
impudent robbery spread throughout my colony of sparrows. 
Market Weston, Thetford. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
