Sept. 15.—Certain people love to so round asking trick questions to which they alone know answer, and one of these questions has for many years, been, "what is the commonest. bird in the world 2" Old memories were revived the other day when T read a witte article.on this 'Subject, because its writer dared to contest (and have' no doubt quite correctly) the answer elvan by the great biologist Darwin. The inter~ sting point about this problem is that almost everybody to whom the question is posed must answer "the house sparrow": or, if the person happened to, bo a bird observer in England, he IGE [odor Bosably" the staring but the correct answer must be. thet. the "commonest firdin the world Is some kind of sea bird, Because of. the. immense spaces open to. such efeaiies and the fect that coral breading. rounds are known to have. populations of tens for—f—tundreds) of millions "and. the next most interesting point about this question is that You may safely" bot the average "questions that he'or she knows nothing about. the. frst Biree commonest birds." Now for & few focis, Darwin's guess was the fulmar petrel, but James Fisher' (probably ving authori of thie younger feneration) says" 4 spundance ofthe faun dit dhe bott "Darwin may, have got lis iden from the Ehat the ttle FTE oes not actualy beat it"
Finally Mr. Fisher, asa result of all hig researches, says he thinks that "Wilson's Petra Which seems to have the freedom of the sess from the Areti¢ to the Indian Ocean, must be the commonest bird. Please note that the three in candidates are, Wilson's. Petrel gazing about any" of Them. One fact that;_and how many people know Fuliner ette, Litto ie and
Presied a natural desire. to oak such questions ive, for more Yeats than f care to count, sup:
the above. may. perhaps be counted in. favour when i go Up for my Final Examination, Sept. 17.—With the summer rapidly ending Tam again putting out peanuts for the Titmiee, just to remand them that when. winter come they may slap me and have one" whenever! they feel. inclined: and. this Jed me to. think: of an ornithologist in' England who. has been making' some new experiments with Titwhice, Hying™ to" provees f have 0 often tried lar Salt birds nave something mare than the the scientife, "Sehaviourisis" "This "expert inet plus. memory" "alloa hem imenter started out by alying. the birds peanuts Ngo' them it various wire-mesh confainees the sttings, Just os dor "then he. began to 'Tits followed" them up. immediately... which seems to suggest that there Is something more titan' inschnet and memory, since nuts were ever there Before. "Then he. began to make illings dificult! 'The frst gadget Nelped memo by" putting the nuts (in separate container Inside: on old distributer: the bled. nding the hole in' the outside container, bunged up. had {0 fly to the top of the box where it could see the nuts inside.... Dut he must pull a. string 10. 2. position where' they Were "trapped so" that he could eat them, 'The Pitmouse pulled the. string and got hie' nuts, Next he made 2 gadget where the. bird, using memory, would pull a string only' to ltd that down again ditmediately he let go. 9¢ the string ihe'"container, of being apped, would, fall {o"start eating: Hasy! After' one or two minutes the it pulled, then put his foot on the string and went on' feeding: small birds are very. Ranay with "their feet, as the Irishman grice tad," Next came. the great, fest: a trick box, nade of @ matchbox fixed to-an upright, with aillttic tray" Below it: the outside cover of the Sox na' ule Hol in front while the inside the nuts, had to be pushed downwards torallow awe sgt ea sigh a hut to slip out into the receiving tray. Right: fot'up comes sir. Titomus. tree, Took "at this, gadget che but can folio ie ressonig. Bo. Jot fo, i tt Sea vill, Bride REA a eaten Sept. 19—That_o bird student gets some fascinating problems to solve may be instanced the following note, "A friend brought me an extract from the diary of one, Roger Lowe, in Ashton-in-Makerfield (Lancs)—written on Apprentice ooking, alter hi master's shos the 20th May 1064—and asked if T could inter= pret it. Here it is.
John Jenkinson, and Joshua Naylor and I went fogetne to Take a herile next.and by chance we net with a pycvannot nest. "We took it: every one Rad one pye, snd one we gave fo The, Winstan= ey" and 9 came: Home.
Now for, my interpretation. The first point]
that "Ashton-in-Makerfield lies directly' be~ tween Wizan and Warrington, and is therefore In close touch with the sea coast. on the west, and the wide mouth of the river Mersey on the south." That our diarist, 'Roger, was a constant visitor to the big waters is proved by the further record (made the same day as the above)., "this night John Jenkins, constable, and T.weni to lay night hooks." Thus we find that Roger: Lowe, with' two friends, goes to take a throstle's nest (a low-building bird which we now calla thrush) "and finds the nest of 9 pye-annet.. "My bird fore immediately tells me (though I have no definite authority) that the "annet" (or annet) 1s the Kittiwake Gul and my chief authority on Gulls tells me that the nests of Kittiwakes may be found "on ledges of eliffs,.on low islands, sand hills and ches, ey tu stocks. and even occasionally In bushes and trees.: any breed far from the seas "s guile usually lay' two or three fags sometimes four, occasionally. five 'Thus, " Ashton-in-Makerdela' ts well within the Fange of a Kiltiwake's. nest containing. four Young birds. "Next I find that the young the common kittiwake is "characterized by' the striking black band seress the wings and the dark streaks on the side of the neck": soit {s"easy to believe that nearly three centuries igo Roger Lowe would refer to. such young birds ay "Pye" (or pled): gulls mature slowly not get full adult plumage for. three or four years. Gulls' eggs are good to eat, and, even to this day, our more primitive relations the north collect and eat sea-birds" young, each year. Hence Roger and his friends took gone "pye™ apiece and gave the fourth to The. Wi T am only' left wondering Thomas W. cooked it... and it he hada stomach-ache about 277 years and 6 mouthy ago.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.