MANX ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 301 



Twite (Linota flavirostris) . — In 1908 Mr. J. Bell found a 

 nest amid heather on the Ay re. He and other 

 residents in Ramsey, who are well acquainted with 

 the species through having kept it in captivity, have 

 of late years met with it out of the breeding-season 

 both on the mountains and lowland. 



Ralfe has lately, through the kindness of Mrs. 

 Roberts, of Castletown, seen an extract from Once 

 a Week, 12th May, 1866, in which her father, the 

 late Mr. J. M. Jeffcott, throws some light upon the 

 nesting of the species in Man, for the article no 

 doubt relates to the Island. He says that he never 

 saw Twites in winter, but had observed small parties 

 in early spring. " In summer. Twites are exceedingly 

 shy, and within a large extent of moor where they 

 breed, it is seldom that more than two or three pairs 

 are to be found." He had once only found a nest, 

 which had six eggs. 



Crossbill (Loxia ciirvirostra) . — For occurrences in 1909, 

 see British Birds, Vol. III., p. 305. 



Chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus). — In a lonely inlet of the 

 west coast, an old mine-working opens half-way up 

 the face of the cliff. High in the lofty but narrow 

 crevice (partty natural, partly artificial) a window, 

 so to speak, still half -framed in timber, opens through 

 the wall of rock to the outer air, and on its sill is 

 annually placed the nest of a Chough, easily visible 

 from the inside against the light of the opening. In 

 this neighbourhood, in 1911, I saw within one and a 

 half miles three nesting-sites, a second being in a 

 cliff surmounting a long rocky brow, and the third 

 in the roof of a rock-arch under which the sea flows 

 at high tide. At a nesting-site mentioned on p. 86 

 of Birds of the Isle of Man, the shelf used in 1877 

 was, in 1911, occupied by a Chough's nest, which 

 contained four eggs. 



Several of the artificial sites described in the same 

 book are now unoccupied. The building in the 

 illustration opposite p. 314 has been pulled down. 

 On October 26th, 1911, Graves saw sixteen Choughs 



