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The female did not return while we were near the place. 

 We had no large gun with us, and could hardly have used it 

 if we had, as we were not expecting anything of the kind. 

 Alston took out the first egg, and I also had o, finger in 

 the nest. We took also the down, which was, as nearly 

 as possible, pure white. 



So Herr Fleischer was correct when he told us of the 

 breeding of a black and white duck in holes in trees, but 

 we were not sure what sort, and certainly did not think 

 of their laying so early. 



We came back to our inn rejoicing, and after breakfast 

 at eleven o'clock we went to the ' big wood' near the village, 

 armed with climbing-irons, collecting-boxes, etc. We 

 found there were plenty of Fieldfares, and that they have 

 begun to breed, but our hopes of a big haul were doomed 

 to disappointment, as very few of the nests are to be 

 had without more climbing than they were worth, and 

 many were quite inaccessible from being over-near the 

 ends of long branches. Almost all were from 30 to 50 

 feet from the ground. I climbed up to several, but some 

 were empty, others old, one of five very hard set, and 

 one, which was comparatively near the ground, with four 

 good and very handsome eggs. There must be an im- 

 mense number of nests in this colony, judging from 

 the number of birds seen. All, however, are not, we 

 fancy, yet built, and some I climbed to contained no 

 eggs yet. These observations argue considerable irregu- 

 larity in their time of laying, both as regards different 

 colonies and as regards different individuals in some 

 colonies. 



We visited the Bramblings' nest which we found last 

 Monday, but it was still empty, and we feared forsaken. 

 Alston found another empty one, and marked the place, 

 and just as we were leaving the wood I noticed a third 

 nest close to where we were standing. We watched the 



