VOL. vir.] NOTES. 343 



finches, about five hundred Bramblings in two flocks, and 

 about fiity Meadow-Pipits, all going in the same direction. 



This is not the first occasion in which a spring-migration 

 of Starlings in large numbers has been observed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Yarmouth (see Zoologist, 1901, pp. 126-27), 

 but then they were going north-east or north-west. On the 

 present occasion the movement was due west, which if 

 persevered in would have taken the birds to Wales, which 

 could hardly have been their destination. It is to be pre- 

 sumed that the presence of these Starlings was due to the 

 sudden change of weather on the Continent, the severity 

 of which might cause many birds to shift their quarters, 

 but that would not account for the unusual direction of 

 their flight. This must have been owing to the wind, which 

 was from the west, and against which they were flying. 



It was in some ways an anomalous movement, but a 

 similar one took place in Norfolk in the spring of 1883 (see 

 The Migration Reports, Fifth Report, 1883, p. 57). At 

 various dates between February 11th and May 8th of that 

 year, Starlings, Rooks, Sky-Larks, and other birds were 

 scheduled as going west at the following stations on the 

 Norfolk coast — ^Leman and Ower Lightship, Outer Dowsing 

 Liglitship, Newarp Lightship, Cockle Lightship, and Lynn 

 Well. J. H. GuRNEY. 



[The movement seems to be quite comparable to the 

 ordinary winter " weather-migrations " except that it 

 occurred at an unusual time and when the birds should 

 normally have been travelling in the oj^posite direction, and 

 suggests that the birds were some of our usual passage- 

 migrants that had already reached the Continent but were 

 forced by the weather-conditions to return. It seems quite un- 

 necessary to suppose that either the direction or force of the 

 wind can have had anything to do with the direction in which 

 the birds were flying. A wind ol force 2 can hardly, on any 

 theory, have any effect on the flight of a Starling. — ^N.F.T.] 



BREEDING-HABITS OF THE RAVEN. 



The Raven {Corvus c. corax) commences to incubate as 

 soon as the first egg has been deposited ; as I suggested 

 [Brit, Birds, IV., p. 141), many eggs of this species would be 

 rendered infertile by frost and snow if the bird completed her 

 clutch before commencing to sit. The following observations 

 made by me this year, bearing on the point, are, I think, of 

 interest : — 



March 29th, nest held six eggs ; 30th, not visited ; 31st, two 

 young, four eggs ; the young differed in size and no doubt 



