* * * * * ADDENDUM.—On November 2nd, 1905, after a further interval of thirteen years, these Tortoises had respectively attained to a weight of 4 lbs. and half an ounce, and 3 lbs. 13½ ozs. as compared with weights of 2 lbs. 10 ozs. and 2 lbs. 5 ozs. in 1886. They are therefore still growing in size and weight. In October of last year (1907) they weighed respectively 4 lbs. 2½ ozs. and 4 lbs. V. MY CHRISTMAS GARDEN PARTY. {44} Norwich is proverbially a City of Gardens, and many of the houses in St. Giles’s Street, including my own, are fortunate enough to share in the advantage of possessing one of these valuable urban appendages. As regards the birds that frequent these gardens, the neighbourhood of Chapel Field, with its trees and shrubs, is, or should be, an additional attraction to them; but I am bound to say that I have not observed so great a congregation, or so large a variety of birds, in Chapel Field Gardens as might have been expected. My own garden consists of a plot of grass of fair size, with one large apple tree in its centre, a double laburnum tree close by, and with several other trees of good size on its confines. Some of the boundary walls are covered with ivy. In my neighbours’ gardens are also both trees and shrubs, whilst Chapel Field is in the immediate vicinity, just beyond my stable yard. There is thus a considerable variety of shelter for the birds, and, doubtless, a proportionate variety of food for them at the proper seasons. In ordinary years, and in average seasons, the following birds come into my garden:— 1. Our constant town friends, the Sparrows. 2. Blackbirds and Thrushes (a pair of each of which usually build and hatch with me, though I am sorry to say that their labour and pains are usually devoid of result, as the young birds are got by the Cats, either in the nest, or as soon as they leave it). 3. Starlings. 4. Robins. 5. Jackdaws (occasionally—from the neighbouring church steeple). 6. At rare intervals I see a little Wren, or Tom-tit, busily engaged on the above-mentioned laburnum tree, evidently getting a good meal from what it finds in the bark. 7. In the prolonged frosty or snowy weather the garden is occasionally visited by the Missel-thrush, and now and then also by 8. A Rook. In the ordinary way, and in open weather, the _number_ of my bird visitors is not large, but in the cold winter weather, and in response to my invitation, this number very considerably increases, so that at times I must have had as many as thirty-five or forty feeding in my garden at the same time. The increase of numbers is chiefly made up of extra Sparrows and Starlings; and when it occurs the scene is often a very lively one; the whole of the thirty or forty birds being often assembled very closely together in active movement; and the grass or garden path on which they collect is sometimes quite black with their feathered life.