Weihaiwei, Aug. 2—1 caught sight of a Chough in the hills the other day (a crow-like bird with red bill and legs) and when T looked it up at home I found its solentine name was Pyrrhccorax pyrrhocorax; fancy having to keep spelling a name like that! This reminds me that the seientiNc name given to a handsome Hawfnch is Coceothraustes coccothraustes cocothraustes, and that even the poor fish do hot escape such silly names: take the case of the Mackerel, for example; there is a Ash with good Scotch name and ay merry a twinkle in its eye as any fish T Know: so the nomenclators call it Scomber scomber... 0 miser= able, "mournful name. But it. is not' only iifie names which sound all wrong: it's bad enough for a bird to have to go Found with "the name of Mealy Redpoll, but "what about that other nice litre bird' which the Scotch call "Yellow-neb Lintio" and the English calla Twitel Fancy being referred to as Twite, Then there is the case of a girl T met the other day called Amelia" Hopkins: she started off badly enough with a name which reminds you of children kicking a stone round the pavements, and then to that her father adds the name of Amelia... and it's not as if my friend Hopkins was a' poor man, and had no choice outside Eliza, Jane and "Amy; he's a Fich man and could well have afforded to put his daughter right up into the Cynthia and Diana class. In private life these things of matter so much because you can Use an other name, but it's the public occasions which count: the' christening. is fairly easy because nobody hears... the baby ly bawling its head off and all te funny uncles are, Whispering, that's the devil going out of -her" (which never does). But the girl has got to. get married some time, and some poor unfortunate must stand up in public and say, "T take thee Amelia." Personally T couldn't do it." and think people: should be muck more' careful about names.—e-s., Welbniwel, Aug. 4—The diet of wild birds is 4 matter of much interest and 1 discussion the question of choice of et' as ust, been forted in the oflelal magazine of the British Ornithologists' Union, Put shorts the point Janu is this: we al Know that: brds, wil eat anything they can find, so Jong as it ly within the scope of their diet, but assuming. there choice of et within their range, what Wil thay choose? Such matters are of) grent 'm= parlance to farmers and frultgoxters"and.consequently well "worth anguising into, Seasonal changes are obvious and so must be taker Into consideration. Ting, for" example, thet the Sparrows here feed their young. entirely on ruby and calerpiiary In uno dalyy But 8 toon as the its young are' edged in August hey repair to the elds in large Hooks and eat rain such a millet ud r36, even tough there te stilt taroc tupply "of catorpitare ete fu Wwhigh the later young are" sil belo. fet {hat Is obviously a matter of choice, As tegnrds
enif worked out for the English Wood the changing of sean here I oh nereting by a careful observer:—cee Jan JPeb, wut Spr: Cabbage, ruse sprout Wimnipeleat, clover, Ivj-borcs_ Feate'6t Wood Anemone" "Berries and From 3 sot any food much ced which' will make. dood. "pio be sucked up by the your through the mother's Augist/Septr.: feed from the stubbles of wheat, eas and beans, (with no. marked. preference).
'Getr. to Jan./Fed.: Reon, Beeehemoat, Aid ferries' of the Black Nightshade: 1" nave underlined the 14st of these because. It 18 cares fuily'noted they will prefer these berries to any existing Cabbaie, oran trons. americ cur huge Nigunade Dut it ix dangerous, and So now I am asking myself....are the Wood pigeons nice birds to know?
Weihaiwei, Aug. 6—I always regard Weihaiwei as one of the homes of scarecrows, And when T say this Tam not easting any aspersions fon the costumes of the farmers, for they are generally very well dressed....but so are the Seareerows: it ly no unusual thing to mistake a scarecrow for a farmer, or vice versa, and only yesterday, when I walked across toa patch of millet to examine the unusual sight Of a scarecrow dressed in female garb, tt sud" denly began to wield a hoe. The variety of "scares" is endless, beginning with the hats to scare the hares off the peanut, shoots; and finishing with the "Mike Higgses" whose. duty Wis to drive the ever-growing flocks sparrows off the ripening Millet and Rye, When Tuse the term "Mike Higgs" I refer to the living boys and youth whom I have named from an old song which began, "Mike Higgs used to feed the pigs—coaxed, them with his hhob-nailed boots: Mike's nose feared away the erows—Kept them off the farmer's fruity"...
Which is all wrong, if you will only note that crows are. not generally. charged with attack-Ing fruit 1¢ the lyricist had made it "roots" to rhyme with "boots" he would have been more Correct, but he had' to drag in. the unripe plum. which caused the early decease of the Said Mike Higgs. August is the month of the Tocal "Mike Higgses, and when you begin to hear a noise. like the wailing of @ lost Banshee you will know they are at work. Mike sits be-Bie every litre patch of autumn grain, and hias_a pole on which Moats a banner of light netting: on top of the pole are two tins tied Together so that they make a clatter when Mike "shakes the pole; in-between-times he just howls dismally; but when the wind blows things are different: wind utters netting netting shakes pole; pole rattles tins; tins ma) hiolse. And Mike Higgs goes happily to sleep.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.