74 liHITISH BIRDS. |vol ix. 



the Anglesey colony is located on the summit of a rocky 

 stack at a little distance from the shore. The nests were 

 segregated in an area of a few square yards, but those on 

 the outer edge impinged on the nesting areas of the Common 

 and Roseate Terns which breed in hundreds on the stack. 

 Most of the eggs were on the bare and jagged rock, or on 

 what little earth there was, but a few were among the plants 

 of wild beet that clothed the top of the stack. Fragments 

 of dried stems of beet had been used by one or two pairs 

 to line their nests, and some had made rudimentary nests 

 of flakes and chips of stone, but in most cases the eggs were 

 laid on the naked rock. Nearly all of the nests held two 

 eggs, but in a few cases birds were incubating only one. 

 No young had been hatched at the time of our visit. We 

 did not detect any Arctic Terns actually nesting on the 

 stack, but there was a small colony on another stack a few 

 yards away, and the alarm cries of the Arctics mingled in 

 the clamour from the dense white cloud of Terns that himg 

 above us when we landed. The Lesser Tern nests in this 

 neighbourhood, although, naturally, not upon the stack 

 itself, and the five species of Terns that nest in Britain may 

 be seen in the course of an hour's stroll along the coast. 

 Indeed, on one occasion as the tide was falling and the birds 

 were coming in from fishing to rest on the shore, Ave had 

 in view on one sandbank, and within a few feet of one another, 

 examples of all five. Common, Arctic, Roseate, Lesser and 

 Sandwich — an experience probably miique in this country. 

 There is no necessity to indicate the precise locality of this 

 Tern colony, and it must suffice to say that it is on private 

 property and is rigorously protected. C. Oldham. 



LAND-RAILS IN STAFFORDSHIRE. 



I AM pleased to report that the Land-Rail (Crex crex) turned 

 up this year in quite average numbers in the district 

 of Cheadle, Staffordshire. On May 9th, 1915, one was 

 killed close to the town of Longton by flying against 

 telegraph-wires. This very dry season is bringing on a very 

 early hay harvest, and this will be most disastrous to Land- 

 Rails' nests, which will be mown over and destroyed before 

 the young are hatched. This result will probably cause a 

 diminished number of this waning species. 



J. R. B. Masefield. 



MOOR-HENS USING TWO NESTS FOR ONE BROOD. 



I HAVE a couple of ponds in a meadow here (near Cuildford) 

 some eighty yards apart, connected by a dike, inhabited 



