102 MISCELLANIES. 



The Wanton Destruction op Swallows. — If you have a convenient op- 

 portunity, I pray you to enter your protest against that abominable prac- 

 tice of shooting Swallows, which is a more serious offence than may at first 

 appear. I often hear the remark made that "we have fewer Swallows than 

 usual"; may not this be owing to their wanton destruction? The Swifts, 

 more especially, appear to be diminishing everywhere, to my no small regret, 

 as they are charming creatures to my mind, and I love their harsh scream 

 perhaps almost as well as I do the melody of the Nightingale. I was forcibly 

 struck with the comparative scarcity of these birds during a little tour I made 

 last May, through parts of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and 

 Northamptonshire. There is a beautiful passage relating to the Swifts in the 

 Journal of a Naturalist, the perusal of which I recommend to your readers. — 

 W. T. Bree, Allesley Rectory* Warwickshire, Oct. 31, 1835. 



Early Nidification op the Robin Redbreast (Rubecula familiaris, 

 Blyth). — The first nest we found this year was that of a Robin Redbreast, in 

 the hole of a wall in an outhouse. It was commenced on the 15th of March, 

 when the ground had been covered with snow several days. The structure 

 was soon compl eted, but no egg was laid till the 28th, when there was a consi- 

 derable improvement in the weather. Notwithstanding a heavy fall of snow 

 on the 29th, another egg was deposited ; and the nest now contains four eggs. 

 The first day we discovered the nest, the parent birds fearlessly flew within a 

 few inches of our head, when we approached the hole, but they afterwards be- 

 came much more shy and wary, and now never suffer themselves to be seen 

 near the spot. — Ed. 



Hipparchia blandina. — Five specimens were captured about the 21st of 

 August, 1836, at the foot of Whernside, in Craven, Yorkshire, by Abraham 

 Clapham, Esq., a pair of which were presented by him to the museum of the 

 Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, and one to Mr. Henry Denny. — Ma- 

 gazine of Zoology and Botany, No. v., Feb. 1837. 



An Instance of the Attachment of the Sky Lark to its Offspring. — The 

 other day some mowers actually shaved off the upper part of the nest of a Sky- 

 Lark without injuring the female, which was sitting on her young ; still she did 

 not fly away, and the mowers levelled the grass all round without her taking 

 further notice of their proceedings; A young friend of mine, son of the owner of 

 the crop, witnessed all this, and about an hour afterwards went to see if she was 

 safe, when, to his great surprise, he found that she had actually constructed a 

 dome of dry grass over the nest during the interval, leaving an aperture on one 

 side for ingress and egress. My friend immediately hastened to inform me of the 

 circumstance, and I was about to follow him to the spot, but, on his return, he 

 found that some ruffian had, in the mean time, torn open the nest, and made off 



