138 
NATURE NOTES 
in an hour and a half. The cycle too, is so noiseless, that the bird never hears 
you, and his song is not interrupted. 
King's Lynn. Charles B. Plowright, M.D. 
Is the Blackbird Imitative ? — About two years ago, one or two boys 
in the houses opposite 
learned to whistle a 
bugle call like the 
above, and two other 
boys picked it up. In 
any key, in tune, out of 
tune, that bugle call 
sounded in our ears till my sister and I were tired enough of it. My sister, being 
awake lately at about four o’clock in the morning, heard part of a similar sequence 
of notes whistled by a bird. She could hardly believe her ears. Then we heard 
the third bar, interspersed with other strains, whistled by a bird in the day-time, 
when it was not so easy to distinguish the sounds. Before four o’clock on the 
morning of the I2th (I think), I lay awake and heard the bird as it were practis- 
ing bits of the bugle call : once I heard the second and third bars together. We 
never hear the bird whistle the last three notes. To have the bird take up that 
call, in addition to the boys, was really oppressive ! 
36, Quarry Road, Hastings. S. P. IIawes. 
Extermination of Rare Birds.— At a recent meeting of the Teesdale 
Naturalists’ Field Club, a member reported that five or six kingfishers which had 
for some years frequented the grounds attached to a residence in Darlington had 
been ruthlessly shot. Strong comments were made about this destruction of a 
beautiful bird which in many parts of the country is becoming extinct. The 
majority of your readers will, I am sure, join with the naturalists of Teesdale in 
deploring the destruction of such rare birds. Appeals to the skin hunters are hope- 
less. Our country is being rapidly deprived of the noblest of its feathered inhabi- 
tant?. During the last few years a number of species have become extinct, and 
other species are fast disappearing. Most of us, unfortunately, have never had 
the pleasure of seeing many of those birds, and I agree with Hudson as to the 
cause — the direct action of man, the greedy collector mainly, whose methods are 
as discreditable as his action is injurious. A remedy for this state of things 
would, I think, be found in making the Wild Birds Protection Act general in 
terms. But if all birds cannot be protected, the right principle is to enumerate 
just those species which are to be outside the pale of protection, not those which 
are to be within it. 
Joseph Collinson. 
Earwig and Worm. — Do earthworms form part of an earwig’s diet? On 
June 4, I noticed a black earwig attacking an earthworm about an inch long, in 
the moist sandy grit by the roadside at Godstone (Surrey). Their wrestlings 
were very ludicrous. The earwig would coil round and round the worm, then, 
retiring a short distance would get under it, apparently to lift it from the ground. 
Next, the earwig made a small cave in the sand, returned and walked round the 
worm, as if to judge its size. This it repeated three or four times. Then the 
struggle recommenced, the worm resisting bravely for some time, but becoming 
helpless as the grit stuck to its body. The earwig continued to run backwards 
and forwards, and seemed to use its antenna; as weapons. Gradually the victim 
was pulled into the hole, only a small portion of its body protruding. A few 
inches away I saw a part of the mutilated body of another worm. 
Clapham Junction. W. Johnson. 
