408 lleiT Badeker's and Dr. Brewer's Oological f'Vorks. 



deficiencies. For the eggs of the first in our hst, the Swallow- 

 tailed Kite — hardly, indeed, to be called a British Bird — we must 

 look further south than we have mostly been accustomed. The 

 Oologists of the United States can give only second-hand ac- 

 counts of its nidification, but we hope it may fall to the lot of 

 the painstaking Mr. O. Salvin to procure what we want from 

 Central America. A supposed egg indeed exists in the British 

 Museum, but without resting, as far as we can learn, upon any 

 reliable authority. The Snowy Owl's, we are led to hope, may 

 " some year when the lemmings again swarm in the mountains," 

 reward the unwearied efforts of the most experienced and, we are 

 glad to add, the most successful collector of our time, Mr. John 

 Wolley, who, we trust, like an oological Charles XII., is still re- 

 solved to *' think nothing gain'd while aught remains," and de- 

 termined that all shall be his " beneath the polar sky." The clue 

 to the nesting-places of the two Thrushes in our list is still to be 

 found, and we cannot add to the already published information 

 relating to the Dalmatian Regulus. For the Crossbills, the sub- 

 arctic forests of both Old and New Worlds are to be investigated 

 with the best chances of success, and even while we write we hear 

 that an accomplished Naturalist in the North of England has 

 good expectations of some authentic eggs of Loxia pifi/opsittacus. 

 The Nutcracker is perhaps something of a reproach to British 

 birds' -nesters, for we understand that its eggs are in more than 

 one Continental cabinet, but we feel pretty confident that they 

 are within the reach of any person who would pass the first 

 three or four months of the year in the Swiss forests (by the 

 way, a friend has reminded us that snow-shoes, either on the 

 Canadian or the Scandinavian plan, would be useful auxiliaries), 

 and we beg leave to make this suggestion to the members of the 

 new ' Alpine Club,' some one of whom might find the occupation 

 a pleasant variety to the now hackneyed adventures on " Peaks, 

 Passes, and Glaciers." For MacQueen's Bustard we must look 

 to Persia if not to our Indian Empire, and doubtless not many 

 years will pass before we obtain some tidings of its nidification, 

 and specimens of its eggs. Professor Nordmann is said to have 

 found the Great White Heron breeding in Poland, but for our- 

 selves we can place no confidence in the many supposed eggs 



