Mr. Jourdain sends me two other authentic instances which have 

 come under his notice, one a nest of fourteen eggs in a field 

 of mowing grass close to Ashbourne Hall, in 1870, another in 

 the same year at Brassington ; unfortunately, in both cases the 

 eggs were not hatched out, and the prospective colony was 

 untimely obliterated. 



Mr. Jourdain also gives me another instance of the Rotche, 

 or little aulc, in Derbyshire, a specimen which was picked 

 up on the Sheffield Moors in November, 1898; the same month 

 and year in which a Sclavonian grebe was killed at Allestree. 



Mr. Jourdain also tells me that the tufted duck is breeding 

 in the Ashbourne district, and seems inclined to settle. We 

 must hope that every possible protection will be accorded to this 

 interesting visitor in order to encourage him to remain with us. 

 On the loth May last, a dotterel, in adult .spring plumage, 

 was picked up on the Nottingham Road, just outside Derby. 

 This bird had probably struck the telegraph wires in its 

 nocturnal migration. 



Three specimens of the bittern are also recorded by 

 Mr. Jourdain, one at Morley, last November, and two more 

 recently, at Egginton and Smalley respectively. All shot ! ! 

 Will the man with a gun ever consent to reserve his murderous 

 instinct for those feathered friends of whom we have enough 

 and to spare, and to give our rarer visitors some chance of 

 staying and multiplying in our land? 



Those members who recollect the history of the kingfisher 

 in my garden may like to hear that though the bird has 

 disappeared now, for some years, in October last another 

 specimen appeared one Sunday and made his plunge. The 

 pond was low, and very full of weed, and the kingfisher got 

 entangled and well-nigh drowned. He was extricated in a 

 landing-net, and put in a cage to dry, being supplied with 

 several small gold-fish in a flower-pot saucer full of water : by 

 the next morning he was nearly dry, and had assimilated all his 

 fish : more fish were supplied, and in the afternoon I went to 

 release him : he had eaten two fish, but himself was dead ! 



