VOL. X.] NOTES. 117 



by pouring strong ammonia through the hole, which was 

 l£ inches in diameter. For fourteen years in my garden in 

 Surrey I have had Wrynecks nesting in my boxes. This 

 year they would not settle on a box and tmned out as many 

 as seven Tits — Great, Blue, and Coal. How the Wrynecks 

 get the Tits' eggs out of the boxes I do not know, but I 

 always find some unbroken. One year two hen Wrynecks 

 were laying in one box and each morning I found the second 

 bird's egg unbroken on the gromid below the box. 



A. Patteson. 



BEARDED TITMOUSE IN BERKSHIRE. 



Mr. E. Blatch, of Theale, tells me that he saw a Bearded 

 Titmouse {Panurns hiarmicns) on the Kennett on August 

 30th, 1916, being first attracted to it by its note, which he 

 at once recognized. He eventually watched it for some 

 time at four or five yards distance on some reeds growing in 

 the river. He saw two other birds which he thinks were the 

 same species, but was not near enough to be certain. He is 

 quite familiar with the bird in Norfolk. I accompanied 

 him to the spot three days later, but it was a very windy day 

 and mifavourable for observation, and there are large dense 

 " rod beds " close to the tall reeds on which the bird was 

 seen. 



The last record of this species in Berkshire apjDears to be 

 in 1814. Norman H. Joy. 



SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS BUILDING IN OLD NESTS 

 OF OTHER BIRDS. 



Tras summer at Redmarley, near Gloucester, I found a nest of 

 a Spotted Flycatcher {Mnscicapa s. striata) placed inside a 

 typical nest of a Mistle-Thrush. The Mistle-Thrush's nest 

 was indifferently supported about 10 feet out and upon the 

 branch of a monkey-puzzle tree at a point wheie the branch 

 divided into three. I was informed on quite credible evidence 

 that the Mistle-Thrushes hatched out young in the nest 

 earlier in the year, A second pair of Flycatchers laid re- 

 spectively one, two, and two eggs in three nests of Swallows 

 all in a row, about two feet apart, in an open shed. Each 

 Swallow's nest had a typical (though somewhat scanty) Fly- 

 catcher's nest inside it and the nest at the right hand end was 

 being sat upon by a parent bird, the other two being pre- 

 sumably deserted. All the eggs appeared to be fresh, 



W. Maitland Congreve. 



