NOTES i 9 



Titlark sitting on the nest in a trembling, excited state. She 

 sat until I almost touched her with my finger. She then fluttered 

 off, and I found the nest contained only one egg. Having an idea 

 that the Cuckoo would return, I kept a watch, and in about fifteen 

 minutes she again came, flying fast, and alighted close to the nest. 

 I crawled forward and found the two Titlarks busily engaged 

 fighting the Cuckoo, who was trying her utmost to get to the nest. 

 They fought with great determination, and again succeeded in 

 driving their enemy away. When they were chasing the Cuckoo 

 through the air they were assisted by their former allies. Seeing 

 the Titlark's safe return to her nest, I watched for a considerable 

 time, but the Cuckoo did not come back. I visited the nest 

 daily up to, and including 3rd July, and on each occasion the 

 Titlark was sitting on her one egg. On my next visit, the 

 7th July, the egg had disappeared and had been replaced by 

 the Cuckoo's. Unfortunately the Pipit had now forsaken the 

 nest. John Pagan, North Mains, Bathgate. 



The Hobby in Midlothian. On 14th October (191 2) a 

 Hobby (Falco subbuteo) was picked up dead outside a wired-in 

 poultry-run at Goshen, near Musselburgh, and handed to me by Mrs 

 Alexander Lauder. I think it was probably killed by flying after a 

 small bird, and striking the wire netting. I took it to be a young 

 male. Richard Tomlinson, Inveresk. 



Scottish Heronries. Two notes in your September number 

 ^seem to call for brief remarks: (1) Mr Donald MacDonald's 

 information (p. 211) is welcome as showing the continued exiguous 

 nesting of the Heron {Ardea ci/ierca) in the Lewis, but the first 

 published report from the west side is by Mr Norman B. Kinnear, in 

 the Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., January and April 1907, pp. 17 and 81. 

 The two reports coincide in naming 1902 as the year of the first 

 nest; (2) Mr H. W. Robinson (p. 214) will find six Orkney 

 localities mentioned in my first list (I.e., 1908, p. 220), These 

 are on the authority of Messrs Harvie-Brown and Buckley's Fauna 

 of the Orkney Islands (1891), and it would be interesting now 

 to have names of further places and to know that an increase 

 in the number of nesting birds has actually occurred. 



May I say that I have material in hand for a further supple- 

 mentary report on Scottish heronries, and any information from 

 your readers would be appreciated and fully acknowledged. 

 Hugh Bovd Watt, London, 



