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broader - headed bird ; but these characteristics vary with age and

circumstances, and cannot always be relied upon.


Reginald Phieeipps.



NESTING OF THE CHINESE PAINTED QUAIL.


Sir, — It may interest our readers to hear that I have a brood of

young Chinese Quails out. I saw them to-day (May 31st) for the first time.

I rear them every season. The old birds are out all the year round ; they

are wonderfully tame, and run all round my legs when I go in to feed.

They will brook no interference with their nesting arrangements: touch

the nest and they will desert promptly.


May I conclude by saying the}’ are not for sale. C. D. Farrar.



NOTES ON THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE.


Sir, —On May 3rd, 1900, I saw a cock Red-backed Shrike, for the first

time, flying about, and resting for a time upon one of the oak trees wdiich

were growing upon the bank of a circular pond, about forty feet in

diameter, in the middle of a large grass field, near Uckfield, Sussex. This

bird came very close to me, flying from branch to branch uttering a very

harsh note. I thought I must be very close to the nest, but I was not.


On the 5th, I saw both birds and followed them into an orchard and

back again to the pond. They flew very quickly, and in a kind of cork¬

screw way, showing their dark back and light underparts alternately.


On the 8th, I found the nest, in a large V-shaped patch of bramble

growing upon the sloping bank of the pond. The nest was about three feet

from the ground and about a foot from the top of the brambles, in rather

an exposed position, and could be seen quite easily without disturbing

anything. It was made of bents, lined with moss, with an inner lining of

red cow-liair, from one of the cows in the same field, which had been

scraping off her winter coat on to one of the oaks close by.


On the 13th, there were three eggs in the nest, of the greenish type.

On the 14th, I saw the hen on the nest at 5 p.111. Is not this rather an unusual

time for birds to lay ?


On May 29th, there were six eggs in the nest, the hen must have been

sitting by then. This was the only time I had found her off the nest since

the 14th. O11 the 8th of June, the young Shrikes were fledged. They were

all coloured alike. By the 12th they had left the nest, which contained an

unbroken addled egg. By the behaviour of the parent birds the young

were evidently close by the nest, but I could not find them anywhere.

The T4U1 of June was the last day on which I saw the Shrikes.


These birds had a very peculiar habit of raising their tails up and

bending them down, and sometimes they twisted them round, describing a

large circle with the tip, while they were perching upon a branch. Before

the hen began to sit, I often found them perching upon the same tree, but

only occasionally taking any notice of each other : they were apparently

watching for food. The cock I saw three times come and flutter about the

hen, and they seemed to kiss each other, on the tips of their beaks. When

the hen was sitting in the nest (in which she looked very much like a small

Song-Thrush) the cock was always somewhere about and behaved very

much like a Spotted Flycatcher, sitting on a branch or fence-rail, and



