60 W. BICKEBTON — NOTES ON BIRDS 



on May 5tli, and two days later I took a small photograph of 

 them. On May 9tli I found two boys with a dog standing over 

 the nest, and, on looking at the eggs, I found that there were 

 only two, and these were chipping. I coidd easily see the chicks 

 moving at the tiny holes their beaks had made. I cleared the 

 boys away, covered up nest and eggs as well as I could, and did 

 the little I could do to protect and preserve them. Two days 

 later, on revisiting the moor, I found the grass all torn up, nest 

 pulled out, and ground and grass for some distance around all 

 trodden over and trampled. As the young of the snipe can run 

 as soon as they emerge from the egg, it is, of course, just barely 

 possible that the mother had got away with the chicks, but 

 I very much doubt if she w^as so fortunate. I fear her two 

 remaining eggs, absolutely valueless as they must have been to 

 anyone, had been wantonly desti'oyed. I have mentioned some 

 of the circumstances which went to make the whole incident, 

 from the human point of view% at all events, a most extraordinary 

 one. And this is the more so when one considers that within 

 two minutes' flight from where the nest was, there were numbers 

 of situations in private and preserved grounds where the birds 

 would have been absolutely quiet and free from disturbance — in 

 all probability undiscovered ; and where they might certainly 

 have hatched-off their brood in safety. I cannot find anywhere 

 in our ' Transactions ' a record of the snipe having nested in 

 Hertfordshire before. We are, therefore, now entitled to add it 

 to the list of birds which have bred in the county, and for this 

 addition to the list we are indebted to Lady Ebury, who kindly 

 reported the incident to Mr. Hopkinson. 



Dunlin {Tringa aljjina). — I saw a solitary specimen of this 

 bird at the Tring Reservoirs on October 28th. 



Eedshank (Totanus calidris). — Although this bird is said in 

 Mr. Grossman's list to be an occasional visitor to Tring, there 

 are only two definite records in that list of its having been 

 obtained in the county — one in 1875 or 1876, and the other in 

 1891. I have now to report that two pairs of these birds, 

 cei-taiuly rare so far as Hei'tfordshire is concerned, have been 

 seen during the summer within a few miles of Watford, and that 

 there is every reason to believe they have successfully nested 

 there. During the last week in May I was spending a holiday 

 among the gulls, terns, and other shore- and marsh-birds in the 

 west of Cumberland, when a letter reached me from Watford 

 stating that two pairs of birds unknown to the writer were 

 haunting — and evidently nesting on — a piece of quiet, reserved, 

 marshy ground within a few miles of Watford. I cannot 

 mention tlie exact locality, because I am in hopes that the birds 

 may return to the spot during 1906, and nest there again, and 

 I do not want them to be disturbed. The writer of the letter 

 asked me if I could help him to identify tlie birds, and on my 

 return to Watford in early June I visited the locality indicated, 

 and found that they were redshanks — birds of the same species. 



