ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 183 



They towered and stooped and manoeuvred in the air, and they 

 attacked each other fiercely on the wall and on the shore, until at 

 length one fell dead into the lake. The victor was seen to fly 

 heavily to the castle wall. Next day it had disappeared, and but a 

 solitary bird now remains." J. B. G. in "The Field," sistMay 1898, 



P- 745- 



Ring 1 Dove nesting 1 in the City of Edinburgh. Perhaps the 

 following may be of some little interest to you. A friend of mine, 

 who lives in a pretty crowded suburb of Edinburgh, informs me 

 that a pair of common Wood Pigeons ( Columba palumbus] are nest- 

 ing in a horse-chestnut tree which grows alongside a large tenement 

 of houses. Is this not rather an uncommon thing, considering the 

 shyness of this species ? You can rely upon this information being 

 correct, and if you think it worth while to make a note of it you 

 are welcome to do so. ARCH. CRAIG, Edinburgh. 



[Although this species is a well-known bird in the parks and 

 gardens of London, Paris, and elsewhere, it has rarely, we believe, 

 bred in the city of Edinburgh. EDS.] 



Mode of Progression of the young Waterhen on Land. In 



crossing a Caithness flow, tenanted by a colony of Black-headed 

 Gulls, on 6th June last, I put up a Waterhen (Gallinula chloropus) 

 from a tuft of rushes. As the gulls' nests seen up to that time were 

 all empty, I thought it useless to halt and look for the Waterhen's, 

 but ere I had gone far I heard the distinctive call of a downy 

 Waterhen, and I noticed a youngster resting on a wet patch between 

 rush beds. The bird was only a day or so old, and it answered 

 fearlessly and repeatedly my efforts to imitate its cry. It proceeded 

 across the damp ground "on all fours," using its stumpy wings like 

 hands, stretching them forward alternately to catch on the stems of 

 grasses or rushes, and moving forward thus with a floundering gait, 

 keeping its belly on the ground as it proceeded. The deliberate use 

 of the wings alternately seemed to me the most interesting point of 

 the observation, as, of course, such a use of a bird's wings in flight 

 is impossible. The adult Waterhen at times exhibits a most re- 

 markable side to side motion of his body in flight, in consequence 

 of his running and flying simultaneously. In connection with this 

 note, it is interesting to compare an account of the downy Little 

 Grebe's method of progression on land, as recorded by Professor 

 Newton in the " Ibis," 1889, and quoted by Mr. Tegetmeier in " The 

 Field," 4th June 1898. Professor Newton shows that this bird, 

 when recently hatched, depends quite as much on its wings as on 

 its legs in impelling itself forward on land. I may say that I had 

 not had the opportunity of seeing Professor Newton's note till after 

 I had made the above observation on the young Waterhen. ROBERT 

 GODFREY, Edinburgh. 



