Some Remarkable Nests and Eggs. 43 



Starlings have no fear of such great birds as 

 Ospreys, and sometimes find lodgings in the base- 

 ments of their eyries, where they rear their noisy 

 broods in perfect security. 



OF course, gregarious birds, such as Rooks and 

 House Martins, that live in colonies, often have 

 their nests so close to each other that they touch. 

 I have seen as many as thirty-seven Rooks' nests 

 in a single tree, and have counted no less than 

 fifty-two Martins' nests under the eaves of a single 

 small stable. Last June the watchers over the 

 sea-fowl breeding on the Fame Islands showed me 

 fifty clutches of Sandwich Terns' eggs on forty-five 

 square feet of ground. 



Other birds that are not gregarious, and conse- 

 quently do not live in companies, sometimes make 

 their nests close together, and I have seen a pair 

 of Eider Ducks' homes actually touching. The 

 ilkistration on page 37 represents the nests of a 

 Great Crested Grebe and Coot within a few feet 

 of each other. They were both occupied at the 

 time the photograph was taken. 



Some birds evince great love for a favourite old 

 nesting-place. Successive generations of Peregrine 

 Falcons and Blue Tits have been known to occupy 

 the same breeding site for close upon a hundred 

 years with hardly a break. Kestrel Hawks have been 

 found rearing a brood on the same ledge of rock 

 for upwards of twenty years in unbroken succession, 

 Eider Ducks for seven, and Herons for fourteen. 



