228 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Great and Blue Tit, but adds : " My experience is that the 

 Coal-Tit does not cover its eggs." Mr. Astley has also found 

 " nests of the Chaffinch and Greenfinch with one or more eggs 

 concealed under the lining, and on one occasion a nest of the 

 Meadow-Pipit with two eggs particularly well covered up." 



The Rev. Allan Ellison and Messrs. E. Earle and E. C. 

 Rossiter give confirmatory evidence of the habit in the Great 

 and Blue Tits, and the first-named adds : "I have many times 

 noted the same in the case of the Coal-Tit. In one spot 

 where a pair of these birds used to nest every year I used 

 to A\atch them from day to clay. ... I always found that 

 until the clutch was complete the eggs were buried in the 

 materials of the nest, which had no cup, but was merely a 

 flat bed of soft materials. Again and again I saw the birds 

 carrying rabbits' fur to the nest at a time Avhcn I knew that 

 there were eggs in it, showing that the eggs are covered by 

 adding fresh material." Mr. Rossiter adds : " As regards 

 the Marsh-Tit, on 3rd May, 1896, I observed a hen bird go 

 on to lay. A few hours later I examined the nest with the help 

 of a lighted taper held at a second hole. The nest was 

 apparently empty, quite tidy, and cup-shaped. On the 

 following 8th May it contained eight eggs, incubated about 

 four days, and the eggs were not then covered." 



THE FIRST BRITISH EXAMPLE OF THE WHITE- 

 SPOTTED BLUETHROAT. 



The late Mr. Howard Saunders, in his notes on additions to the 

 British List (supra, pp. 7-8), did not refer to the Scarborough 

 record of this form of the Bluethroat (c/. Zool., 1876, p. 

 4956, and Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire, p. 20), but gave 

 the date of the first British occurrence as the 6th October, 

 1902, when one was picked up at Dungeness. Having 

 recently had an opportunity of examining the Scarborough 

 specimen, which I exhibited at the British Ornithologists' 

 Club on the 16th October last, I am pleased to be able to 

 state that its identity is fully established. It is in every 

 wa}^ typical of the white-spotted form (Cyanecula ivolfi'), 

 tlae wiiite in the centre of the blue throat being most distinct, 

 and about half-an-inch in diameter. The plumage, even after 

 the lapse of thirty years, still retains its deep intense hue. 

 As the females of the two forms of Bluethroat cannot be 

 distinguished it is unfortunate that a misleading statement 

 was made as to the sex of this bird, which accounts for its 

 rejection by the authors of recent ornithological works. 



On questioning the present owner of the specimen as to the 



