328 BRITISH BIRDS. 



From the country lying to the south and east of a hne 

 drawn from the Wash to Portland Bill, i.e., on the 

 Cretaceous and Tertiary strata (leaving out the wolds of 

 Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), records are far more numerous 

 than elsewhere ; the chief counties from which there are 

 a number of records outside this area are Shropshire and 

 Staffordshire. Probably one reason for this abundance 

 of records is that the Cretaceous and Tertiary systems 

 include a number of beds giving rise to sandy soils much 

 planted with pine trees. Such are the Lower Greensand 

 in Bedfordshire ; drift over the Chalk in western Suftolk 

 and Norfolk ; the Bagshot beds of eastern Berkshire, 

 north-eastern Hampshire and western Surrey ; the 

 Lower Greensand of south-western Surrey, and the same 

 formation across Kent ; the Tertiarj- beds of the New 

 Porest ; and the sand}" members of the Hastings beds in 

 Sussex and Kent, Tilgate and Ashdown Forests. It 

 should, however, also be borne in mind that this part of 

 England probably contains more observers of birds than 

 elsewhere. 



NESTING. 



The earliest recorded nest was one found on January 

 12th, 1910, near Thetford, Norfolk, with three nestlings 

 (H. Noble, III., 302); the latest were on May 25th, on which 

 date. one with two eggs Avas recorded in St. Leonard's 

 Forest, Sussex (J. Walpole-Bond, IV., 49-50), and one 

 with five eggs near Ashford, Kent (H. R. Tutt, IV., 

 82). More were found in March and April than in 

 February or May. The time of nesting, positions of the 

 nests, and number of eggs (most often four, less so three 

 and five) seem to have shown no unusual features (com- 

 pare, for instance, the account in Newton's " YarreU," 

 Vol. II., pp. 197 and 198). Two nests are recorded in 

 spruce (N. Tracj^ IV., 22, and J. Beddall Smith, IV., 187), 

 and two in larch (W. J. Kempe, IV., 121, and J. Beddall 

 Smith, IV., 187) ; in all other cases where the kind of tree 

 in which the nests were built is stated, it is Scotch pine. 



