Some Remarkable Nests axd Eggs. 89 



same nest once at least. I have seen a Coot's Qg'g 

 in a Great Crested Grebe's nest, and those ot 

 Blackbirds and Thrushes mixed, but in neither 

 instance could I be sure that they had been placed 

 where they were by the birds and not by some 

 experimentally minded human Ix'ing. 



STAKL1N(; S l.GdS IN THE SAMH M>TI.\(; TLACE i p. 8(3>. 



Anyone makinof a close study ot Xature and 

 the ways of her children is constantly encountering 

 strange freaks of behaviour. Last summer, whilst 

 staying in the ruins of St. Cuthbert's Tower on the 

 Fame Islands, I went out with my friend Mr. 

 Paynter, the greatest friend of Seafowl in the British 

 Islands, and he showed me a Lesser Black-backed 

 Gull's nest containing three eo-os Avhich were beino- 



