OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE IN 1906. 207 



find no cover but heather in profusion ; the black-game affect the 

 rough, hilly groujid bordering cultivated land where there are 

 plantations of fir and birch, in which they perch like pheasants, 

 hiding in the thick bracken on the sides of the hills, drawing- 

 down to the rushy bottoms and moist ground about the burns, 

 where they find most of their daily fare, and visiting the oatfields 

 at twilight. They may even be found sometimes in fields of 

 roots or potatoes, at some distance from their usual haunts, for 

 they are strong fliers, and when crossing a valley or travelling 

 at a height, look something hke wild ducks, flying in a straight 

 line with outstretched heads and necks. In their fondness for 

 acorns and oats they also remind one of the ducks, and, hke 

 them, come off the moor at sundown in search of this kind of 

 food. In the early morning they may be seen flying out from 

 the birch- woods and making for the patches of bracken on the 

 hillsides, their black and white plumage showing up finely against 

 such a background in the gleam of the rising sun." 



General Notes. 



My general notes commence, as usual, with the Thrush family, 

 and first of all with the song-thrush {Turdus musicus). Two 

 points worthy of comment with regard to this commonest of 

 birds come out from the year's records : (1) The tendency (noted 

 last year) to re-commence singing in autumn has again been 

 observed. In bygone years one never seemed to hear, or expected 

 to hear, of thrushes singing before January or February of the 

 year, but latterly reports have come to hand of these birds 

 singing in December, in November, and even in October. Thus, 

 Mr. F. W. Headley, M.A., of Haileybury, notes that on October 

 5th a thrush or two were singing, and again on October 15th 

 that a thrush was singing. Mr. M. Vaughan, M.A., also of 

 Haileybury, notes that thrushes sang vigorously during the latter 

 part^ of November. (2) A tendency to change of habit in the 

 choice of nesting-sites. Thus Mr. Headley also reports : " Near 

 the Lea, a httle above Hertford, quite a number of thrushes' 

 nests were built on the ground. Is this because vermin are 

 getting killed down ? Mr. J. H. Buxton has noticed the same 

 thing near his house at Hunsdonbury." It may add to the 

 interest of this point to note that I saw five instances myself 

 of thrushes' nests built right on the groimd. One of these was 

 in an osier-bed and only a few yards away from the riverside 

 (Colne) near Watford, two others were in thick reed-beds, where 

 wild ducks were freely nesting, while a fourth nest was built 

 right in the centre of the fronds of a fern just where these sprang 

 up from the ground. This was within a thick wood. In the 

 fifth instance the nest was placed in a bunch of nettles about 

 eighteen inches down the steep side of a narrow ditch, and was 

 that distance below the general level of the ground through 

 which the ditch ran. This was at Cassio Bridge. Mr. A. W. 

 Dickinson (St. Albans) also reports a blackbird's nest in 



