NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
75 
Pheasants eating Hazel-nuts. — A flock of tame pheasants regularly 
come from my woods each morning to enjoy a feast of sopped bread and coarse 
oatmeal which is scattered for them outside the dining-room window. At the 
same time handfuls of hazel-nuts are throwm out for the squirrels. To my surprise 
I have lately noticed that the pheasants eagerly pick up the nuts, shells and all. 
I saw' one hen swallow eight nuts in succession, a proof, surely, that these birds 
must possess wonderful powers of digestion. 
Eliza Brightwen. 
Marsh Tit. — A titmouse of this species has frequented the garden here for 
eeks. It is tamer than any other tit, and feeds regularly on a half cocoanut 
suspended in the verandah. The other day it allowed me to come within six feet 
of it and take its photograph while swinging on the cocoanut. 
The Poplars , Pucklechurch, BLANCHE A. Coney. 
March 5, 1903. 
Sparrows. — As an instance of the destruction that sparrows can cause to 
crops, a field of more than an acre was last year sown with vetches and oats. 
Not a single blade came up, the whole field having been entirely stripped by the 
domestic sparrow. 
Blanche A. Coney. 
Cowbird. — Re note on “ Cowbird ” in February Nature Notes, I would 
say that the Cowbird of Eastern America, Molothrus ater, is a starling and so 
catalogued by American ornithologists. Its nearest relations are the Orioles, 
blackbirds ( Agelaitis ), meadowlarks ( Stiirnella ), and bobolink ( Dolichonyx )'. 
It is therefore also not distinctly connected with the crows, grackles and jays. 
Binghampton , New York , US. A., Willard N. Clute. 
p'ebruary 28, 1903. 
[Mr. A. H. Evans, in the “Cambridge Natural History,” classes Mo/obrus, as 
the generic name should be spelt, in the Sub-family Agelaeince of the Family 
Icteridce, comprising, as he says, “‘the American Orioles ’ or ‘American Star- 
lings,’ which are certainly not Orioles, though analogous to the Starlings.” The 
true Starlings, that is, belong to a distinct though not distant Family. Of course 
the affinities of one species are those of the whole of its genus, w'hile the mis- 
leading character of American popular names for birds is proverbial. — Ed. W.iV.] 
Cold Weather. — The unusually severe season that we are experiencing here 
has, amongst other things, brought us birds that are ordinarily strangers. During 
the last few days w'e have had as visitors around the Hotel Belmont, which is 
situated somewhat above Montreux, at an altitude of about 1,450 feet above sea- 
level, and 200 above the lake, a flock of very beautiful birds of the crow tribe. 
They are about the size of a small pigeon, the cock bird, however, considerably 
larger than the hen. Their plumage is what is generally called black, but as it 
appears to my eyes in the sunshine it is a very deep lustrous indigo. In both 
sexes the bill is pale yellow, and not nearly so powerfully built as that of the 
rook : the legs are red. An Irish lady in the hotel observes that they must build 
in the rocks because they strut about like tame pigeons. She is right, and I 
notice that they soar like eagles, in circular fashion. This shows that they have 
been driven down by the cold from the higher mountains above the level where 
trees exist. Like the gulls from the lake, they are here to pick up bread that is 
put out for or thrown to them, and what else they can find. And so ignorant 
people here call them black gulls, but their proper name is Chocard des Alpes, 
sometimes spelt Chotuas. They are not so noisy as jackdaws. Usually there ate 
a few crows about, and most of them are smaller than the English biids of that 
name. I do not remember having seen rooks in Montreux. The wings of the 
chocard are well spread and the feathers much separated at the points, the tail 
long and well spread in flight also, the appearance of the bird on the wing being 
singularly flat, like a plate. All this so that he may be suited to the rarefied 
atmosphere of his high home. On the contrary, gulls and other water birds have 
narrow wings, like the blades of a knile, with short tails. I do not notice the 
birds around the hotels lower down. 
Hotel Belmont , Montreux , Switzerland , Giles A. Daubeny. 
January 20, 1903. 
