leaves in pairs, and coarsely toothed, whilst its dull flower heads hang as if withering. Yellow too would seem to be the colour of the season, for here a plant of the square-stemmed St John's-wort projects over the water, and there, where the stream widens to a pool of tranquil olivebrown water, a few leaves and one or two of the golden cups of the yellow waterlily float in undisturbed peace. The heavenly blue of these forget-me-nots breaks the spell of constant yellow, and so do these faintly-blushing, three-petalled flowers on the spike of the arrowhead, whose leaf renders it unmistakable. We may perhaps be fortunate enough to meet with the floating flower-stalks of the curious bladder-wort, that about this season bear three or four blossoms above the water. These somewhat resemble the Calceolaria of our gardens, and are yellow, but the chief interest of the little floating plant is in the bladders, from which it takes its name, on the submerged muchsegmented leaves. These little bodies, with their curious tentacles giving them a quaint resemblance to gigantic water-fleas, are not floats, as they were once supposed to be, but carnivorous organs, feeding upon the dead bodies of those veritable water-fleas that, led by curiosity, venture within their treacherous trap-doors. Grave charges have even been brought against this seemingly-innocent little plant of poaching upon the preserves of the angler by occasionally capturing salmon-fry; but, be this as it may, we cannot fail to derive much interest from a more leisurely examination of these eel-traps in miniature.

August

WILD LIFE IN AUGUST

In this month of August, when so many of my readers will be taking a long holiday in the country, bird-news which has lately reached me from a clergyman living in South Devon will, I feel sure, be very welcome to them. It almost made me long to go down immediately, to see for myself so much that was pleasant all gathered together in one locality, which is near to Kingsbridge. He gives an account of the conditions of bird-life in his neighbourhood, which, as he says, are very different from some of those reported from other parts of the country. There seems to be an abundance in that district of many birds which are almost extinct in some localities.

The Rev. T. F. Boultbee writes: "In a wood about a mile from here there is what I might call a 'crowery,' for there are now about twenty crows' nests on adjacent trees, exactly after the manner of a rookery. There are in the same wood the nests of two pairs of sparrow-hawks and two pairs of kestrels, and there may be others of which I do not know. Within a quarter of a mile of my house there are several crows' nests, and magpies abound; jays also are common. I have a little copse within three hundred yards of my house, where I often sit for a couple of hours before seven o'clock in the morning watching the birds and beasts. Moorhens and coots cry from the pond in the hollow below. Woodpeckers, owls, jays, magpies, hawks, blackcaps, white-throats, chiff-chaffs, willow-warblers, wood-warblers, reed-warblers, grasshopper-warblers at night, and hosts of small birds— 'drummers' (a word not used here) in plenty, and occasionally a badger-are all to be seen or heard, but I have never seen a grasshopperwarbler.

"Otters are no rarity in the river here, though I have never seen one, excepting when he has been forced by the hounds to show himself. Otter hunting is carried on systematically and extensively in this

district.

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"There are extensive mud-flats left by the tide, and a large twomile-long fresh-water mere -called here a 'lea' to which great numbers and various kinds of water-fowl and waders come.

"We have only one kind of gull breeding here, the herring gull, though many kinds make this coast their home during the autumn and winter.

"Dippers, or water ouzels, are very common with us, kingfishers also, and bullfinches, but we never see a goldfinch and rarely a linnet; cirl buntings are common. Ring-ouzels and hoopoes have been occasionally seen, but I have never myself seen one of either sort alive.

"Buzzards are not infrequently shot here, peregrines are not uncommon on the cliffs which overhang the sea, and there is a large heronry in a wood a few miles off; bitterns also are sometimes seen.

"I think, if you were able to come on a visit to this neighbourhood, you would find much to interest you."

Perhaps some of our readers may happen to be staying in South Devon whilst they read this pleasant account, in which case they will be able to verify through their own observations those of this genial bird lover.

When considering some of the birds of prey last month we did not mention the merlin, the kestrel or the hobby.

The first of these, the merlin, or stone falcon, is the smallest member of the family of British falcons. It prefers the moorlands, and is more at home in the north than in the south. On all the tracts of moorland beyond Derbyshire it is found breeding in suitable localities. In Ireland it is fairly common in the mountainous districts; also in many parts of Wales. In the south it is not so common, although on Exmoor a few nest regularly. In autumn it leaves the higher moorlands to repair to the sea-coast or lower grounds, where it preys extensively on birds of the wader family, such as dunlins and snipe. The merlin is a most courageous little bird, and it will attack birds which you would not imagine possible for it to master.

We are told that in Lancashire each pair of merlins appropriates a very considerable stretch of country, and that they always nest widely apart, returning to the same particular bit of hillside year after year. The nest, as a rule, is merely a depression scratched in the soil. Sometimes a little moss and a few dead twigs are put together round it, but often not even that; and now and again the bird will deposit its

eggs in an old nest of some other species, in a tree, four to six of them in number. The usual colour of these is a dark reddish-brown or purplish-red. Mr R. G. Howard has recorded that, in June 1887, a merlin took possession of the deserted nest of a carrion crow, which was in a thorn bush on Firband Fell, near Kendal. The gamekeeper shot both the old birds, and took the young from the nest in the presence of Mr Morris, of Ledbergh.

This species is often called the stone falcon, on account of its habit of pitching on boulders and rocks.

Although in the autumn it frequents the coast in quest of dunlins, or birds of like kind, yet its food consists largely of the smaller birds, especially of the finch tribe, of mice, and of beetles. Skylarks also it has a fondness for; indeed, falconers have made use of this bird for flying at larks.

Dragon-
In

Swifter in flight is the hobby, which is distinguished by its remarkably long wings. Its rapidity is so great that it is able to capture even such birds as the swallow and the martin when on the wing. flies, cockchafers and other insects form its chief prey in summer. the autumn it leaves the wooded districts to frequent more open country, and various sportsmen-naturalists have recorded instances of its harassing their dogs when working in the field, and making off with the birds which they had put up.

The hobby arrives in England in small numbers, late in May. It is known to breed in some of the southern counties, especially in Hampshire, occasionally only in the Midlands, and rarely in Yorkshire. In some of the eastern counties it is not uncommon, but it is scarce in the west; whilst in Scotland it is never known to nest. The hobby never makes a nest of its own; it always appropriates to itself one that has been built by a crow, magpie or other bird. There it lays its eggs, from two to three in number; yellowish-white these are, closely marked with brownish-red or rufous.

Mr Howard Saunders says that the female is much given to brooding on an empty nest, or upon eggs of the kestrel, a fact which has led many careful observers to believe that the nest from which the hobby had been seen to fly really belonged to that bird, when such was not the case. He says also that he has known one hobby, which was taken as a nestling, to live for fifteen years in confinement, although this is a bird that ill brooks captivity.

The kestrel, or wind fanner, as he is locally called, as well as wind hover and red hawk, is the commonest of our British birds of prey. In the south it is as well known to the country children as is the cuckoo. Although the fact is not as much recognised as it ought to be, this bird is one of the very best friends of the agriculturalist, since it feeds principally upon mice. The name of windhover or wind fanner is given it on account of the habit it has of hanging almost motionless in the air against the wind. Although mice form its chief article of diet, yet there are times in the course of the year when even these small pests are not to be found in too great numbers, and, when the young ones have to be fed, the parent birds cannot be expected to be too fastidious, and a young partridge or a pheasant, or even a wood pigeon, not to speak of an occasional chicken or duckling, comes in very acceptably. Such depredations, however, may be considered as an exception to the bird's general habits. When hunger presses, birds, as well as humans, ought to have allowance made for them.

I am told that the kestrel will single out a peewit from a flock, chase it in grand form and kill it. Also that he is a pleasanter pet to keep than any other of the falcon tribe.

The kestrel will breed wherever there are suitable woods, and, as a rule, it prefers the higher trees. It is also supposed that the birds. roost in winter near the trees in which they intend to breed. They seldom build a nest for themselves, but either utilise the old nest of a wood-pigeon, crow, or some such bird, or deposit their eggs in the holes in the faces of cliffs or quarries, in dead trees, old buildings, or even in an open nest upon the ground. The eggs are four to six in number, and are yellowish-white, blotched with brownish-red. If their nest is robbed before the full number of eggs is laid, the pair will simply move away to the next empty nest that they can find and place the rest of their eggs in that.

In the northern counties the kestrel seldom takes birds at all. It will leave the higher grounds, in the autumn and winter, for the lowerlying districts and the sandhills bordering on the tide, where mice may always be found.

In the southern countries of Europe, especially in Spain, it is very abundant, and in these it feeds largely on grasshoppers and beetles.

As a last Accipitrine, we may just mention Montagu's harrier, which is a smaller and slenderer bird than the hen-harrier already