56* BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
as the 20th of March; the year before I found a 
nest with eggs very hard set, upon the 6th of 
April. 
The nest is a large domed structure, made of 
moss and lined with dry leaves, a small hole only 
being left for the entrance of the bird. 
The poor Water Ouzel has been so much and 
so unjustly persecuted by gamekeepers and others 
interested in the preservation of fish, under the mis- 
taken notion that it feeds upon the spawn of salmon 
and trout, that I cannot help noticing at some 
length the very successful defence that has been 
made to this charge. Mr. Saxby says on this sub- 
ject, in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1863 (p. 8631), that when 
in North Wales he had an almost unlimited supply 
of specimens brought him by the keepers in the 
neighbourhood, and that in not one instance could 
even a trace of salmon ova be found in the stomach, 
although the spawning season was the time in which 
the slaughter of the Water Ouzel was most indus- 
triously carried on. In one instance only, he con- 
tinues, could ova of any kind of fish be found, and 
that certainly was not of salmon or trout. In the 
‘Zoologist’ for 1866 (Second Series, p. 21), Mr. 
Alston says, “ A full investigation of the charges so 
often brought against the Water Ouzel, of feeding 
on the spawn of salmon and trout, will be found in 
Mr. Frank Buckland’s book on fish-hatching, where 
he shows that, so far from eating, it in fact protects 
