NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
21 7 
Passerine Repentance ?— Last year I related in Nature Notes the 
harefaced way in which thrushes were robbed by sparrows of the chafers they 
had dug up on mv lawn. The thrushes have been at work this year as usual, 
but not once have I seen a sparrow attempt to seize their food, though it is some- 
times taken from them both by blackbirds and starlings. The reason is easy to 
discover. Down to the time the corn began to ripen there was sufficient rain to 
keep the ground moist and provide an abundance of other food. I am afraid, 
therefore, that my rascally sparrows have not really improved in morals, but that 
this year they have had no necessity to be greater thieves than usual. 
Market Weston , 'Hut font. Edmund Titos. Daubeny. 
The Decrease of Swallows. — 11 Where are the swallows?” has been a 
frequent question this year, and I think demands more than a passing notice. The 
answer has been “a cold spring,” “late frosts,” and other similar reasons, and 
I see in the October issue of Nature Notes that the sparrows have something 
to do with the misfortune. But I fear the real cause is of a more permanent and 
deadly nature, which only came to my knowledge a fortnight ago. Hence my 
troubling you with this, in the hope that your Society may be able to do some- 
thing to stop the murders — though indeed the hope seems small. The following 
is the explanation of the mystery. When a fortnight ago bemoaning the scarcity 
of swallows, and the plague of midges, flies, daddy-long-legs, &c. , two visitors 
happened to hear the lament. “Oh. I can tell you why they don’t come,” 
said they. “They catch them and kill them.” “Brutes!” we exclaimed. 
“Where?” “In Italy,” said they, “by thousands. They spread high nets 
where they are known to pass and trap them in shoals. They are then eaten by 
the peasantry — who are starving and will eat anything.” “ But you don’t mean 
to say they will eat swallows,” we protested. “ Yes, they do; they will 
eat anything, poor things ! So would you if you were in the same state of 
hunger.” It seemed beyond belief, but my two lady friends may be relied on ; 
and as they had spent the spring in Italy and do not speak from hearsay, I fear 
the evil is too true. Of course the Bread Riots may have made the suffering 
worse than usual this year, but this is only a matter of degree. I am rather a 
horticulturist than entomologist, and know little of the species of insect that 
swallows delight in, but this I do know, that the celery fly has come, that the 
grub in apples abounds, that honey-dew smothers the beeches, and that moths 
and midges torment one day and night. A pair of flycatchers have for years 
regularly built in a creeper on the house. They, too, this year, have neglected 
to turn up ; so altogether we are in a bad way. II. V. E. 
Mile Ash , Derby. 
Migration of Swallows. — A very interesting sight was witnessed by my 
husband and myself when walking in the neighbourhood of Frome, Somerset, on 
the evening of September 17, about 6.39 p.m. It was an enormous gathering 
of swallows, which filled the air with their cries, seemed to come from all 
quarters, and extended upwards as far as the eye could reach. They circled 
round and round, and at last dropped by thousands, like showers of autumn 
leaves, upon some low-growing young willow trees, close to the river Frome, and 
very near the Sewage Works, about half a mile from the town, where they 
evidently took up their quarters for the night. I have been informed that this 
was not the only evening on which this extraordinary sight has been witnessed. 
So it seems reasonable to suppose that these swallows dispersed again during the 
day, and that this is their place of assemblage in these enormous numbers in 
anticipation of their long journey to southern climes, chosen as giving both 
shelter and f >od. It certainly was a sight never to be forgotten, and reminded us 
rather of an infinitely extended and multiplied swarm of bees. 
M. Blanche Thompson. 
Cuckoo. — That the cuckoo does convey its eggs to the nests of other insecti- 
vorous birds by other means than by laying them there is, I think, now pretty well 
an established fact. The following case has come lately under my observation, 
tending to prove this. 
In a cavity in an old stone bridge, having an opening just large enough to 
