G. Christopher Davies

The Boys' Note-Book.

A Note-book was incidentally mentioned in the last chapter. Properly speaking, it should have been mentioned long before.

On the table in the boat-house lay a large folio manuscript book, in which the boys noted down whatever, in their reading or observation, struck them as noticeable or worth remembering, or of which they wished to be reminded at some future time, when they should have leisure to look up what they wished to know concerning the matter noted. Before therefore I close this "strange eventful history," I shall quote a few pages at random out of their Note-book, just to show how it was kept up.

In the left-hand margin of each sheet the date of the entry was written opposite each note, and each jotting was signed by the one making it. So that the book ran after this fashion:—

"They have a novel mode of netting shore birds at Lynn. They have long nets stretched on poles about six feet high, on the sands towards dusk, one line below high water mark and the other upon the ridge."—F. M.

"All grain-eating birds feed their young on insects—as a matter of course because there is no grain in the spring—so they make up for the damage they may do to the grain. I shall write a letter to this effect to the Secretary of the Sparrow Club here. The fellows in that club are as proud of their sparrow heads as a red Indian of his scalps."—F. M.

Mole Cricket.

"Crickets are the thirstiest of all thirsty creatures."

"Mem. How do flies walk with their heads downwards, and how do they buzz?"—R. C.

"Caught a lizard in the garden to-day, and when I touched it, its tail dropped off. Curious habit some reptiles have of parting with their tails. It is done to divert attention from the body, which makes its escape."—J. B.

"Our keeper set some trimmers on our little lake in the park last night, and this morning he found on one of them a great crested grebe which had swallowed the bait, and on the other an eel of four pounds weight with a kitten in its inside."—R. C.

"Frank's head has a permanent set to one side, from always looking into the hedges for nests. I noticed it in church."—J. B.

"You'll get a licking, young 'un."—Frank.

"Bell says that he has seen an osprey resting on one of the posts in Hickling Broad, and it was so gorged after a meal of fish that he rowed quite close to it."—F. M.

"I saw a squirrel eating some toad-stools which grew at the foot of a tree near Sir Richard's house. I thought they fed only on nuts."—J. Brett.

"They say that hedgehogs will go into an orchard and roll themselves on the fallen fruit, so that it sticks to their spines, and then they walk off with it. Should like to see them do it, and I wonder how they get it off again."—J. B.

"Saw a robin kill a sparrow in fair fight this morning, and it afterwards ate a portion of him! Also saw two rooks fighting like anything, and a third perched on a branch just above them, as if to see fair play."—F. M.

"What a curious instinct it is which leads moths and butterflies, while you are killing them, to lay their eggs. It is their last will and testament!"

"I found a brood of caterpillars on a hawthorn-bush; they were the caterpillars of the small oak-eggar. They make a silken nest in the branches, and they come out to feed and go in to sleep. There were at the least five hundred of them. The moth, I see, is a small, dingy brown thing, with white spots on the wings."—R. C.

"Bell's son took a hornet's nest the other day. He was stung by one of them, and was ill for some days, the inflammation was so bad. Bell says that hornets are much rarer now than they used to be, and a good thing too.

"While going to take a wasp's nest to-day, we disturbed a large hawk-like bird, which had been digging it up and apparently eating the grubs. The wasps were flying all about it and settling on it, but it did not seem to mind them. Upon looking at our books we have decided that the bird was the honey-buzzard, one of the short-winged hawks."—F. M.