OTES 



MUD-DAUBED EGGS OF JACKDAW. 



In British Birds, Vol. VIII., p. 14, there is a note by me'on 

 a Jackdaw which was in the habit of daubing its eggs with 

 mud. In 1915 I had to leave Oswestry before the bird had 

 finished laying in the particular nest referred to. A friend 

 visited the nest two or three days later and found that it had 

 been robbed in the meantime. This year (1916) I visited the 

 nest on April 23rd, and foimd it nearly complete and lined as 

 usual with wool, hair and a little moss and grass. I revisited 

 it on May 2nd and foimd that it contained four eggs so 

 thickly daubed with mud that only very small portions of the 

 shell were visible. The eggs were dry but the nest was very 

 different from when I first saw it, for now the lining was 

 thickly covered with mud which had caked and resembled the 

 mud bottom of a Magpie's nest. I removed the eggs, which 

 were incubated in slightly different stages, and replaced them 

 by four clean fresh eggs from another nest. On May 3rd I 

 revisited the nest and found the mud lining damp and the 

 eggs slightly coated with mud. Previous to this year only the 

 eggs had been daubed, but this time it would be difficult to 

 say, of the bird's own eggs, whether the nest was mud-lined 

 and the eggs got it from the lining, or whether in the process 

 of daubing the eggs the lining of the nest became coated with 

 mud. The latter is perhaps the right view. The clean eggs 

 which I put into the nest were probably muddied accidentally 

 from the lining : this may have been damped by the bird 

 as she returned to the nest, as there had been rain in the 

 morning and after I left the previous day. 



The difference in the stages of incubation of the mud-daubed 

 eggs led me to examine a set out of a nest which had only 

 one egg on April 23rd and on May 3rd held six. These were 

 all in different stages of incubation, from clearly defined young 

 to practically fresh. Other complete sets gave more or less 

 similar results, but some sets were all fresh. This shows that 

 the Jackdaw has no fixed rule when incubation shall commence. 



J, H. Owen. 



PIED FLYCATCHER IN HERTFORDSHIRE. 



On April 30th, 1916, Dr. A. H. Foster and I saw a male 

 Pied Flycatcher {Muscicapa h. hypoUuca) near Knebworth, 



