OBSERVED IN HERTI'ORBSHIE.E IN 1905. 59 



was last noted in our ' Transactions.' Tins is the more curious 

 because, even if it does not still linger on as a breeding-species 

 in odd places in the north or north-east of the county, I feel 

 convinced that it must pass through the county on migration 

 both in spring and autumn. During the day, however, it is 

 rather a quiet bird, becoming vocal only after dusk. Perhaps 

 this is the reason why it is not more frequently reported. 



Golden Plovei" (Charadrlus liluvlalis). — This bird is reported 

 by Mr. A. W. Dickinson (St. Albans) to have been more plentiful 

 during 1905. Mr. M. Vaughan (Haileybury) I'eports a solitary 

 specimen on October 17th, but also states : " On 24th January, 

 1906, I saw a fine lot of quite 200 in niunber not a mile from 

 here — the biggest lot I have seen for years." With regard to 

 this and other members of the great and widely-dispersed Limi- 

 coline family, the same observer reports : " There are nothing 

 like so many snipe, woodcock, and golden plover as there were 

 25 years ago. It is years since I saw a snipe near here." 



With regard to the Common Snipe {Gallinago celestis), I know 

 of one or two districts in the western part of the county which 

 are every winter visited by this bird in fair nmnbers. And, 

 strange to say, a pair of snipe have, daring 1905, been founel 

 nesting in the Watford district — an incident which I think may 

 also be classed as one of the extraordinary incidents of what, as 

 I have before said, has been a somewhat unusual year from an 

 ornithological point of view. The occiuTence itself is all the 

 more extraordinary when one considers the strange locality and 

 surroundings chosen by the birds for their nesting-haunt. As 

 I do not think there is the remotest chance of the birds ever 

 repeating their visit to the situation in which they nested 

 last year, I cannot do any harm in stating that this was on 

 Croxley Common Moor — a small piece of rough common-land, 

 marshy in places, between Watford and Eickmansworth. When 

 it is considered that this bit of rough land is bounded on three 

 sides hy railways and on the fourth by the Grand Junction 

 Canal, that it is common-land open and free for everyone to 

 roam over, that there is a much-used footpath running across it, 

 that the boys of the village search it pretty thoroughly in the 

 springtime for any pheasants' or partridges' eggs that may be 

 found on it (and for the finding of which they get rewarded), 

 I think you will agree that it is about the last place in the 

 world where one would expect to find the nest of so rare, so shy, 

 so wary, and so inaccessible a bird as the common snipe. The 

 nest was well hidden in the midst of a tuft of dry grass, and 

 was only 50 paces from the railway and perhaps 80 paces from 

 the footpath, and therefore on the least remote part of the 

 common. It was first found by some of the boys, who chanced 

 to flush the bird from the nest, which then contained four eggs. 

 One of these was broken, but, thanks to the intervention of the 

 keeper, the other three were restored to the nest, and the bird 

 returned to them. I first saw the nest and three remaining eggs 



