574 Kestrel attacked by the Hooded Crow. 



The A^nas Taddma (sheldrake) is common, either in pairs, or 

 in flocks of about a dozen, in the creeks and inlets of the 

 river Crouch. — The ^nas clypeata (shoveller) is rarely killed: 

 I have seen one pair this winter. Likewise the pochard ; 

 and the golden-eye, here called the bastard diver. — The herons 

 .... [the remarks on are printed in p. 458.]. — One individual 

 of the kittiwake has been killed on the Crouch. Here ends 

 my list. 



A Hooded Crow has attacked a Kestrel possessed of a Snipe 

 that it had wrested from a Sparrowhawk. — Allow me to re- 

 late a contest I was witness to, a few weeks since, on the 

 Southminster marshes. I was beating a ditch for snipes, when 

 a sparrowhawk, about fifty yards from me, made his stoop ; 

 and I lost sight of him in the ditch, which was nearly dry. 

 On my making towards the spot, he rose many yards from 

 where I saw him descend, but near enough for me to see that 

 he had captured a snipe. He not having secured it well, 

 alighted about eighty yards from me, and was on the point of 

 taking wing, when a male kestrel, which I had not seen before, 

 rushed upon him, and succeeded in taking the snipe. I was 

 on the point of shooting at the group, when they took wing 

 too far from me to make a shot. Immediately, the kestrel 

 was attacked most violently by a royston, or hooded, crow ; and 

 he, being burthened with the snipe, and followed by the spar- 

 rowhawk, suffered himself to be knocked down rather than 

 give up his plunder. He, however, recovered himself, and, lay- 

 ing wing to the air, made the best escape he could, till I lost 

 them in the distance ; but he was epicure enough to keep his 

 snipe : so I judged from going to the spot where he was felled, 

 and not finding it there. — Walter Henry Hill. Southminster 

 Vicarage, Essex, Feb. 12. 1835. 



The Method of preserving Fowls' Eggs in Lime-water for 

 eating is well known, but does not seem to be practised as it 

 deserves to be. We are still using eggs at breakfast which 

 were preserved in April last year ; and they are as good as the 

 day they were laid, retaining the milkiness and delicate taste pe- 

 culiar to a new-laid egg. I had one, two days ago, marked " 1st 

 April" (then, of course, ten months and nineteen days old), 

 with all the characteristics of a newly laid one. It is lime- 

 water, in fact, that we use, and the eggs are mostly warm 

 when put into it. None of them are allowed to be twenty-four 

 hours old : this is essential, I believe. The shells are liable to 

 crack in the boiling ; but the eggs do not burst ; and [only] a 

 very few of them have a slight curdy flavour, not unpleasant, 

 however, to those who like new eggs. — A Subscriber. Vale of 

 Alford, Aberdeenshire, Feb. 22. 1834. 



