F. C. SELOUS : NESTING HABITS. 49 



nests on the same piece of flooded ground, though more 

 in the centre of it, where the water was deeper. But I 

 had to walk some distance through water at least a foot in 

 dej)th to get to all six of the Wagtails' nests. 



As I believe that when the Blue- headed Wagtail nests in 

 England it builds its nest on dry ground, as does the 

 Yellow Wagtail in the part of Surrey where I am now 

 living, I have thought that this note of the breeding habits 

 of this sj^ecies in Central Hungary might be of interest. 



Of the six nests which I took, five contained six, and one 

 five eggs. These eggs vary in colour from grey to brown, 

 but on the whole closely resemble those of our Yellow 

 Wagtail. The first nest was taken on May 2.5th, the last 

 on June 1st, and the eggs in all were quite fresh. 



When in the south of Sj)ain in the sj)ring of 1900, I 

 took, on April 22nd, two nests, each containing five fresh 

 eggs, of a Wagtail which I thought belonged to the same 

 species as those of which I had found the nests in Hungary 

 the preceding year. But according to the Eev. Francis 

 C. R. Jourdain, the form of Yellow Wag'tail which 

 breeds in Southern Spain is not the Blue, but the 

 Grey-headed Wagtail {Motacilla jiava cinereicapilla Savi). 

 The two nests which I took near the Lucia Real were 

 both built at the foot of small bushes on quite dry ground, 

 at some distance from water. 



Nutcracker. Nueifraga caryocatactes (L). 



On j)aying a visit, in April, 1899, to my friend, Mr. C. 

 G. Danford, who was then living- in Transylvania, near 

 the foot of the Southern Carpathians, he showed me the 

 nest, containing three eggs, of the Nutcracker which is 

 now exhibited in the bird gallery of the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington. He had brought it down 

 from tlie mountains a few days previously. Mr. Danford 

 and I then went up into the momitains and searched for 

 more Nutcrackers' nests, but without success, as, although 

 the birds were numerous, the forests in which they breed 

 are of enormous extent. 



