spider! Another singular circumstance occurred to the same family this year. By the road-side they had a small box nailed to a gate-post, for the convenience of the postman, in which letters &c. for and from the post-office were deposited. The aperture in the lid is only large enough to admit a newspaper, but through this tiny portal a robin contrived to squeeze herself and building-apparatus, and made her nest, and was not discovered until she had well stocked it with eggs (I think it was said eleven or twelve, but cannot be certain). Upon opening the box it was found to be half filled with moss; this was cleared out and the box again closed. However, the next day, much to the chagrin of the kind-hearted gent., he found one of his letters partly pecked to pieces, and another pushed out of the hole in the lid, and lying some distance from the box. I suppose the dear little creature suspected the letters of treachery, and so vented her ire upon them, when she found her home pillaged and her little eggs gone." Such is the tale, which, as my friend writes, "though strange is no less true." Mr. Yarrell, in his admirable work on British Birds, gives us a very interesting anecdote of the love displayed by robins to a peculiar place to build their nest in. You will excuse me, I hope, for troubling you with this long letter; but having derived much pleasure myself from the above account, I fancy it may be interesting at all events to the younger readers of 'The Zoologist,' as illustrating a part of the economy of the robin's life.—Frank Clifford; Elvedon Rectory, near Thetford, October 2, 1843.
Observations on previous notes on the Grey Wagtail, (Zool. 136 and 230). As I was dressing one morning about a fortnight ago, my attention was attracted by the repeated passage of swallows (Hirundo rustica) close to my window. After watching them a few seconds, it became obvious that they were engaged in capturing the flies and other insects, which were basking in the sun on the walls of my residence. Very soon after I first noticed them, and while I was still standing near the window, one of the passers by caught sight of a small, rough, black fly (less than the common housefly), which was resting on the inner side of one of the upper panes. At first I thought it would have tried to take the fly; but after a pause, seemingly occupied in closer observation, it passed on again. The same evolution took place several times, and with the like result in every case. On other parts of the window there were two or three gnats &c.; but of these the swallows seemed to take no notice. On the following morning, and indeed for four or five successive mornings, the swallows, at the same hour, were similarly employed: and again and again did one or other of them pause before the same fly (which I had now discovered was a dead one, though without any trace of external injury, fixed by its feet to the glass), but not one attempt was made to seize it. All the actors in the scene seemed, after a near approach, to be aware that such an attempt would be made in vain. I was strongly reminded by this scene of the actions of the grey wagtail already described, (Zool. 136, 230); and being a little sceptical on the subject of both the explanations there suggested, of such an unwonted proceeding, my doubts (as to the former at least) were now greatly increased. It appears improbable that a wagtail should persevere in attempting to seize an insect that existed only in its imagination, when a swallow, strongly attracted by a real fly, made not even one effort to take it from the glass: nor is the improbability lessened, if we take other similar cases into account. Thus the trout, having taken the artificial fly into his mouth, at once detects the cheat, and immediately ejects it if he can, that is to say, if he has not been hooked. But does he take it again the next time it comes over him? No! The angler may exert all his skill,—he may throw his fly, with the lightness of thistle-down, to exactly the proper spot,—but he never raises that trout