NOTES. 807 



after feeding and ravenously snatch up the fceces, while the 

 male bird carries them away. This also applies to the Black- 

 bird. The female Chaffinch will swallow them ; the male 

 picks them up and drops them some distance away from the 

 nest. Also the Linnet. All the Warblers that I have watched 

 seem to carry them away. Oliver G. Pike. 



[There is evidently considerable individual variation in 

 this habit. In 1897 when I first observed the habit in the 

 Mistle-Thrush I noted that both parent-birds undoubtedly 

 swallowed the fceces of the young in the nest I watched, and 

 I suggested that the habit might save the time of the parent- 

 birds in procuring food for themselves, since there was likely 

 to be nourishment in the fceces {cf. Knowledge, 1898, p. 66). 

 Writing of a pair of Blackbirds, wliicli he watched incessantly 

 for a whole day, T. D. Weir states (MacGillivray, British 

 Birds, II., J). 96), " except in one or two instances, the Black- 

 birds swallowed all the droppings of their brood" He makes 

 the same observation concerning the Mistle-Thrush (p. 124) 

 and the Song-Thrush (p. 138), and it is clear that in all three 

 cases both parent-birds are referred to.— H.F.W.] 



EXTRAORDINARY NEST-BUILDING. 



On April 22nd, 1906, 1 was walking along a hedge near Croydon 

 when I came across a couple of Hedge-Sparrows {Accentor 

 modularis) in a very excited state and vociferating loudly. 

 I watched for a time to see what was the cause of it, thinking 

 that some enemy was near. I found, however, that each 

 bird was building a separate nest in the hedge, and so close 

 together that the nests were touching. The birds were not 

 quarrelling, and from their actions I should judge them to be 

 a pair. The photograph here reproduced shows the nests, 

 which, however, were never finished, nor were eggs laid in 

 them. 



Another case of extraordinary nest-building came under 

 my notice at a farm in Hampshire in the spring of 1905. In 

 this case a pair of Chaffinches {Fringilla coelebs) made no less 

 than nineteen attempts at nest-building, two of which resulted 

 in finished nests. In one of these a brood of young was hatched, 

 and afterwards deserted owing to the nest being inspected by 

 one of the men on the farm. 



The nests were built in an open cowshed, along the front 

 of which ran a beam supporting the rafters which held the 

 roof. The nests were placed on this beam in between the 

 rafters. Those at either end of the beam were mere founda- 

 tions about an inch high, but as the middle of the beam was 



