60 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
stream, where it is generally hidden from view by the 
overhanging turf. The exposed roots of fallen trees 
and the thatched roofs of sheds are also favourite sites. 
Mr. F. Brownsword informs us that in 1890 he found 
a Wren’s nest, containing six eggs, inside the old nest 
of a House Martin beneath the eaves of a building at 
Prestbury; and Mr. R. Newstead has a note of one at 
The Dale, Chester, in 1899, which was built in a 
Swallow’s nest. In the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 
there is a nest supported between the drooping wing 
and body of a dead Sparrow Hawk, which was taken 
from a keeper’s gibbet at Carden Park in July 1898. 
Mr. F. S. Graves saw a nest at Capesthorne in the 
spring of 1899, built in the head of a Brussels-sprout.t 
In 1898, Coward found an abnormal nest containing 
eges in a crevice in the rough bark of an old poplar in 
Dunham Park. It was cup-shaped, with an arch of 
nesting material round the entrance-hole, but had no 
dome, the roof being formed by the bark of the tree. 
In 1899 an exactly similar nest was built in another 
part of the trunk of the same tree, which had been 
blown down during the winter. 
FAMILY CERTHIIDA. 
TREE CREEPER. 
CERTHIA FAMILIARIS, Linnzeus. 
As a breeding species, the Tree Creeper, although 
not very common, is generally distributed in the low- 
lands, and we have observed it in the wooded valleys 
of the upper Dane and Goyt. In winter it is more 
frequently met with than in summer, and at this 
1 Of. Seebohm, op. cit. vol. i. p. 508. 
