NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
217 
of the body felt like a little shrivelled bag of bones in a loose ball of soft and 
fluffy feathers. We tried to put a little strength into him by a little weak sherry 
and water, and he sipped it once. It only made him shiv.er suddenly and he 
would not try again. When I put him down he hurried, fluttering and stumbling, 
to a dark corner of the greenhouse where he had often repaired before, and there 
in the morning he was found dead. He had instinctively carried out the family 
traditions. He had counted the cost and laid up his store, but the poor little 
enfeebled frame could go no farther. M. Giberne. 
41. Wagtails and Flycatchers. — Near here a flycatcher’s nest was 
over a friend’s study window. A pair of pied wagtails helped to feed the young 
birds, much to the indignation of the flycatchers : they did it for about two days. 
September, 1903. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
42. Birds of Prey. —In reply to the writer of a note on this subject, I 
have seen a jay fly off with a young half-grown bird from the nest in a tree near 
the house, returning in a few minutes for another victim, in spite of the furious 
attacks of the little parent birds. I saw a carrion crow do the same thing with 
the young of a pair of missel-thrushes, taking all the brood. I tried in vain to 
scare the robber. One day in the lane we saw a tussle going on between a magpie 
and some blackbirds. Frightened by our approach, the magpie flew off in one 
direction, the parent blackbirds and some young ones in the other, but on coming 
to the spot we found one young blackbird lying dead, killed by a wound in the 
back of its head, evidently inflicted by the magpie’s beak. I think that there is 
nothing unusual in the occurrence. 
Cumberland. E. H. 
43. Broken Eggs.— In reply to query 2 (August number, page 177 ), I 
would suggest that the culprit was the jay. During the past season I have seen 
many instances of wild birds’ eggs having been sucked by this species, especially 
those of the blackbird, and I have seen jays caught in the very act. Putting 
aside game-preserving as unnecessary, the jay perhaps does not do a great deal of 
harm ; but that it destroys a number of wild birds’ eggs and young I have not 
the slightest doubt about. It may be, however, that in this respect it is one of 
the balance-keepers of Nature. 
St. Albans, W. Percival Westali., F.R.H.S., M.B.O.U. 
August, 1903. 
44. Hobby at Kenninghall. — While roaming over the fields about a 
mile from Kenninghall, on August 5, I observed a splendid hobby hovering over a 
large elm. After circulating three times it flew into the tree, disturbing some 
starlings which had settled there. It did not stop long in the tree as a game- 
keeper was shooting close by, but flew off in the direction of East Harling. A 
friend who was with me said a gamekeeper in the district had killed over a 
dozen hawks within the last three months. I am sorry to say a fine male hobby 
was killed at Rushford on August 8, and is now being preserved by a Thetford 
taxidermist. 
Melford Bridge Road, Thetford, August 20, 1903. W. S. Sparrow. 
45. Kingfisher Killed by Jack. In 1897, near Northallerton, a lady 
friend of mine saw a kingfisher pursued by a jack. One snap bit off its beak, and 
though the bird got to land and she picked it up, it died soon afterwards. 
46. Jack Killed by Hail (p. 176 ). — Was it really so? During thunder, 
accompanied by hail, fish leave the surface, and hailstones could not inflict fatal 
injury a few inches under water. I have known fish die in a mysterious manner, 
and the reason assigned has generally been thunder. On one occasion I visited a 
pond in a field with neither inlet or outlet, and not liable to contamination. 
Dead eels, many of considerable size, were in every direction. The water, which 
was from 2 ft. to 5 ft. deep, looked pure and clean enough, and a thunderstorm 
was said to have caused the mortality. There may, or may not, have been severe 
hail with this thunderstorm, but eels at all events would not poke their noses out 
of the water to be battered to death. Will some one kindly tell us how the 
thunderstorm managed to kill the jack, and how it killed the eels, or what was 
the true cause ? Do epidemics attack fish ? Does disease kill off one kind of fish 
in a piece of water and leave other kinds exempt ? In the pond with the dead 
eels the other fish were alive. This opens out an interesting field for enquiry. 
August, 1903. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
