NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
155 
Bullfinches are very few in numbers ; there seem to be less each summer. 
While having a friendly chat with a gardener at one of the large gardens in the 
town the topic of birds was brought up. I asked him if there were any bull- 
finches visited his garden. “ Oh yes, we have some come when the buds are on 
the bushes and trees, but we shoot them whenever there is a chance.” I advised 
him to give over shooting them, as they were becoming very scarce. LBffC 0 ': 
The hedges by the road sides and green lanes are quite alive with the young 
of blackbirds, thrushes, robins, linnets, whitethroats, tits, &c., while on the 
heaths the wheatears, stone curlews, and lapwings can be watched busy bringing 
up their youngsters. Lapwings are decreasing on our heaths ; the collecting of 
their eggs by the keepers, who get a good price for them in London, would in 
some degree account for the smallness of the numbers. Stone curlews have 
increased in good numbers ; in the evening they are continually passing over the 
town ; their call-note can be heaid a great distance off. 
I have picked up several dropped eggs of starlings, thrushes, and sparrows 
this last month. Could any reader of Nature Notes explain the reason for 
them to be dropped about? I think it is rather unusual, as there seem to be 
more than there have been other years. 
June 13. W. S. Starrow. 
7. Strange Nesting-places of the Robin. —We receive so many 
accounts of “ strange ” nesting-places of this species — window-curtains, buffers of 
railway-carriages, &c. — that we doubt whether they are worth recording, or 
whether in this case the exception does not prove to be the rule, the abnormal, 
the normal. — Ed. N.N. 
8. Pikes and Ducklings. — On the banks of the lake in the beautiful and 
picturesque grounds of the Kilnwick Percy, a wild duck brought forth thirteen 
ducklings, which are reduced to seven (at the time I am writing) by the large 
pike which abound in the lake. When watching mother duck proudly sailing 
with her brood, you see a swirl and the number is reduced. Soon we shall be 
able to say “ a big pike swallowed one, and then there were none.” 
June 10, 1903. Zeno. 
9. Poplar Clearwing. — Many of the poplars here are bored by the larva 
of this moth ( Sphecia apiformis ) ; but though its work can easily be detected, it 
is difficult to take either the chrysalis or the perfect insect, and some of its habits 
are still unknown to me. A memo, in an interleaved copy of Staiuton’s “ Manual 
of British Butterflies and Moths” reminds me that I have taken the pupa on July 
11. It is provokingly difficult to see, and even when right under my nose will 
not let me find it. After hours of search I succeeded one July in securing two 
pupae, one of which came out perfect, the other being maimed. A few days after 
this I again visited the trees, and found twenty or thirty pupa skins sticking out of 
holes in the bark, in the very part of the trees I had lately searched. The pupa 
case is strong and composed of particles of bark firmly glued together, and the 
end of it is level with the surface of the bark close against the ground, or within a 
few inches of it. The hole bored by the caterpillar is the size of a large pencil. 
Knowing exactly the time to search, and being baffled in my attempts to find a 
sufficient number of pupae, I hoped to catch the perfect insect, a sluggish one, 
resting on the trunk of the trees, where one reads it is not infrequently found. 
In this my success has been but small. It appears to me to be probable that the 
moth, which flies in the day time, emerges from the chrysalis early' in the morning, 
and then takes refuge some way up the tree ; that it lays its eggs there ; and that 
the larva eats its way downwards in the heart of the tree, turning to a chrysalis at 
the root, close to the edge of the ground. The perfect insect may be taken by 
fastening a piece of gauze netting to the ground and round the infested tree, at 
the end of June; but not every one is so circumstanced as to be able to prevent 
the curious from interfering with this simple trap. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
10. Bees. — Minute white material, apparently flakes of wax, may often be 
seen in front of hives tenanted by fresh svrarms, and goes on in some profusion 
for several days. Asihe body of each bee produces only a limited amount of wax, 
this is a loss of valuable material, if my supposition that it is wax proves to be 
