of the tower and sang it at daybreak. When I was a little boy, my father always took me to hear this hymn sung, and we generally stood on Magdalen Bridge. And now comes another very curious custom. After the hymn has been sung, the choristers throw down eggs, supposed to be those of jackdaws and starlings, collected from the tower, upon the crowd. The people then begin to blow tin horns with long and loud blasts. It is said by some that the origin of this custom was to drown the sound of the mass being sung at the top of the tower. Dr. Newman, however, says that he believes this is the only remnant in England of a Roman ceremony, the 1st of May being the day in which a festival was held in honour of a Roman goddess, or possibly the Floralia, or floral games, which amongst the Romans began on the 28th of April. The celebration of May-day by the chimney-sweeps, and others, may possibly have had its origin from the same old Roman custom. HOW STONEHENGE WAS BUILT, p. 66.-Many theories have been advanced as to the mechanical power which was adopted by Druids to handle the enormous stones which built Stonehenge. Captain Dunbar of the Scots Greys tells me that in his opinion they managed it by taking advantage of a heavy fall of snow and severe frost. The snow was packed up between the uprights, filling up the space to a level with the top of them; a plane with a slight incline was then formed with more snow, and water thrown over to form it into a solid mass; the third stone was then levered or rolled up the incline to its position, and when the snow melted the stone would be left in its position. It is quite certain that earth was sometimes used instead of snow for this purpose, to form cromlechs and other megalithic structures; heat and cold water were probably used to split the stones to the required dimensions. Near Crickhowell, a few yards from the Usk, there stands in a gentleman's park a solitary monolith, probably the remains of an old Druid temple. My friend Mr. Berrington tells me the local tradition is that, on the eve of St. John, the stone goes down to the Usk and dips itself three times in the water. This is probably the last remnant of some ancient Druidical rite that took place on Midsummer-day symbolical of purification. TAMING BIRDS, &c., p. 68.—Mr. Davy agrees with White. In all his long experience, he never knew of a bird which could not be tamed. It is very remarkable, that, as a rule, all birds seem to be very timid at the sight of gloves. If you feed a tame thrush with gloves on he will" chuck, chuck, chuck," and dash about the cage. This shows fear; the blackbird will do the same thing. Every bird, old or young, can be tamed by kind treatment and knick-knacks in the shape of tempting food. A knick-knack for a soft-feeding bird would be maggots cleaned in sand, and mealworms, and any kind of small beetle; knick-knacks for carnivorous birds would be live mice, small birds, &c. CLAWS OF HERON, p. 69.-The feet of birds afford a field for very great study. Along the sides of the toes of the capercaillie run a series of hard, strong bristles, not at all unlike the teeth of an ordinary comb. I believe the use of these is to act as a snow-shoe to help to support the bird when walking on the snow. The reader should observe for himself the curious serration on one side of SERRATED CLAW OF THE HERON. the middle toe of the common heron. The same structure is also found in the bittern and cormorant. The use of it is certainly not for prehension, as was formerly supposed, but rather, as its structure indicates, for a comb. Among the feathers of the heron and bittern can always be found a considerable quantity of powder. The bird probably uses this comb to keep the powder and feathers in proper order. FERN-OWL, p. 70.-The Fern-Owl, or Goat-sucker, arrives here very late in May, the month of cockchafers; the chafers come out with the leaves. The female makes no nest, but lays two eggs on the bare ground. The churring noise is its song; the male bird does it mostly; the male will "churr" when the female is sitting; she can shift her young when danger is near, she probably rolls them away with her wings. Goat-suckers like to have their nest in the hollow made by a horse's or cow's hoof. They devour large quantities of beetles. It does not seem likely that this bird should use its foot to catch beetles; the mouth is evidently adapted to take any sized beetle. If one of them be shot the beetles may be found alive in the pouch, especially when they are feeding their young. These birds make very fair progress on the boughs of the trees; they shuffle, not walk, along the branches. This is one of the very few birds Mr. Davy has not succeeded in keeping long. Mr. Searle informs me that the cockchafers are very small in Berkshire, but in Hampshire they are large. Mr. Davy says that in the neighbourhood of London you get cockchafers both large and sinall about Hampstead, and especially Lord Mansfield's wood there. Colonel Leathes kindly sent me in the summer of 1875 two young fern-owls, taken from the nest in his woods near Yarmouth. I fed them on scraped beef and hard-boiled eggs, and they lived some weeks; they were very tame. The bristles round the sides of the mouth to assist in catching insects are very remarkable. INDIAN GRASS, p. 73.-It is quite evident that silkworm gut, now so common, was not much known to anglers in the time of White. At the present time it forms the most important item, next to the hooks, in an angler's tackle. I do not think that Izaak Walton, who died in 1683, used much gut. The gut is secreted from a fluid, contained in two long vessels lying at the side of the stomach of the silkworm; these terminate in a single tube in the centre of the lower lip of the caterpillar, who spins it as he wishes. It is probable that each thread of silk is double, half being secreted from one of the vessels above described, and the other half from its neighbour. are All the treatises upon silk and silkworms, as well as those relating to animal products, to which I have access singularly silent upon the subject of silkworm gut, for the simple reason, I suppose, that the authors knew nothing about the history of the subject. In my youthful days I used to make the silkworm gut myself. A silkworm must be watched until he is just beginning to spin. He must then be placed in ordinary vinegar and allowed to soak some forty-eight hours or longer. The operator must then take hold of its B B head and tail and pull them apart. He will find a string stretches out between the head and tail; this is the consolidated silk or the silkworm gut. Place two pins in a board and wind the two extremities on the pins, and leave the gut to dry. The tangled and twisted ends on the gut-hanks one buys are the ends which have been wound round these pins. The gut of commerce is made principally in China, and, I believe, also in Spain. ARRIVAL OF BIRDS, p. 80.-In order to give a comparative table of the arrival of birds at Selborne and in the neighbourhood of London, I give the following list. The London list is given on the authority of Mr. Davy, the bird-catcher : When the flycatcher has arrived we anticipate that all the soft meat tribe are here. When the bird-catchers come home about the 15th or 16th of April, they say that the swifts have arrived. The following birds stay to the end of August:-the cuckoo, the nightingale, the wryneck. This is a great migratory month. The following birds stay to the end of October:-house-swallow, martin, sand-martin. Swallows have been seen in Tottenham Court Road as late as the 5th of November. Swifts leave about the middle of August; they have been known to stay till the end of September.1 A correspondent, "J.", thus writes in Land and Water:-"The swift, which visits us generally on the 5th of May, retires the earliest, seldom later than the 12th of August, although a few are occasionally later, and in one instance a swift was seen on the 26th of August." MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS FROM ENGLAND.-In September and October the greater portion of our summer visitants are nearly all gone or going. Among these we may mention the nightingale, redstart, wryneck, cuckoo (the old cuckoos are gone, but a few young are still left), flycatchers, warblers, turtle-doves, goatsuckers, tree-pipits, shrikes, grasshopper larks. A few of the following still remain :-Blackcap, chiff-chaff, meadow pipit, White's wagtail, Ray's wagtail, willow-wren, wheatear, large and lesser whitethroat, &c. These are soft billed or soft meat birds, which leave England in the autumn. About the same time that these birds leave us, others arrive, such as goldfinches, woodlarks, skylarks, linnets, redpoles, twites, siskins, and snowbuntings. About the second week in September, the flights of these commence and last for three weeks or a month. The autumn arrivals are seed-eating birds. The London bird-catchers at this "flight time," go down to the south coast for their harvest, and take large quantities of the arriving birds, many thousands are sent up weekly to London for cage birds, and to be kept for their song. At the end of March the birds which left us in September and October begin to return to this country. BIRDS SEEN AT KIMBERLEY, NORFOLK.-The Rev. F. O. Morris thus writes in Land and Water:-"I received the following list of birds seen at or near Kimberley (Norfolk), from the Earl of Kimberley, about a fortnight ago, and I have his permission to send it to you for publication : 13. Red-backed Shrike, seen occasionally, but rare; I saw a pair this September. 14. Great Tit, common. 15. Cole Tit, common. 16. Blue Tit, common. 17. Marsh Tit, common. 18. Long-tailed Tit, common. 19. Spotted Flycatcher, common. 20. Kingfisher frequent; particularly abundant this year, owing, no doubt, to recent mild winters. In long severe frosts we have found many dead. 21. Ravens used to breed (one pair) here every year, now seldom seen; I saw a pair two years ago. 22. Crow, not many. 23. Hooded Crow, numerous winter. 24. Rook, very numerous. in |