yards up and down the street. From its motions it appeared to be catching insects, its flight agreeing exactly with that of the swallow when so engaged. Several vehicle-drivers tried to cut it down, but it wheeled and dodged about, and nimbly avoided their attempts to strike it. The afternoon was clear, but the sun did not shine. It is probable that this night-harbinger came up with some of the hop-waggons which usually stop at the spot; be this as it may, its dancing amused me and a host of wonderers besides.—Alfred Lambert; 6, Trinity St. December 3, 1842.
Note on a Weasel. One day in June, 1842, as a lady was sitting in a room at Ilford, the windows of which opened to the ground, she was very much surprised by the appearance of a weasel (Mustela vulgaris), which, after trying round the window for an entrance, stood up on its hind legs against one of the panes of glass, and remained there, notwithstanding the furious barking of a little terrier that was in the room, until the window was opened, when he started off very leisurely, but was overtaken and killed by the dog.—W.T., London, December, 1842. [In future, all communications, unless editorial, must have the writer's name and address.—Ed.]
Note on the capture of the Sea Eagle (Haliaëtos albicilla) in Shetland.
By Thomas Edmonston, jun. Esq.
In these days the respective monarchs of the quadruped and bird kingdoms—the lion and the eagle, are not invested with the shadowy mantle of super-animal bravery and magnanimity with which the older naturalists, as well as poets, loved to clothe them. On the contrary, the courage of the African king of the desert has been more than once daringly and distinctly impugned; and even the eagle, whom we find gravely described in works of no very ancient date, as of much too noble a nature to fear even the "human form divine," and having far too much respect for his dignity (or his stomach) to touch food which had not been slaughtered by his own royal self, he is sunk into a place but little higher than the vultures—with whom in fact the great and discerning mind of the first of naturalists, Linnæus, associated him, and certainly with as much justice as some more modern systematists, who have classed him with the falcons—and found not only to be glad to partake of a carrion banquet with the raven and the hoody, but also to be endowed with no more of the faculty of courage, when pitted against his equals or superiors, than those who regard discretion as the better part of valour.
