DETECTION OF AIRCRAFT.
[To vet Eamon 07 .1 "See OT•T011."]
SIR,—I have a book by J. E. Harting, published in 1883 by Horace Cox. In it is a paper on " Trapping Hawke in Holland." This describes how the trapper is concealed in a small dug-out, roofed with turf, with his trapping apparatus set out at some distance from the hut. Near the but are tethered two grey shrikes. or butcher birds]. They have a little turf shelter to rude in, and a lump of raw beef to keep them occupied. The object of having these birds is that they can detect the approach of a hawk long before it is visible to the human eye, and so give timely notice to the trapper. They are constantly on the look out, and when they see a hawk they begin chattering and back each other up like a brace of pointera. Might not they be made useful in giving notice of the approach of aircraft P 1 have seen it reported that parrots on the Eiffel Tower give such warning (apparently through bearing the noise of the engine), but a shrike is much hardier and more portable than a parrot—I am. Sir, &c.,
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