182 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
similar statement with regard to Combermere.! Person- 
ally, we have found the Turtle Dove more plentiful 
in that district than anywhere else in Cheshire; in 
August, a few years since, we frequently saw parties of 
four or five birds feeding in the fields in the neighbour- 
hood of Bar Mere and Quoisley Mere. Mr. J. Platt 
has eggs in his collection which were taken near 
Shavington-cum-Gresty. 
The Turtle Dove has not yet been observed on the 
hills of East Cheshire, but in the Plain it is steadily 
increasing. There is a specimen in the Warrington 
Museum from Preston Brook. We have found nests 
in thorn-trees in Higher Peover Park, and the bird 
is plentiful in the neighbourhood of Somerford. Mr. 
H. H. Corbett found a nest in a holly-tree at Alderley 
Edge about the year 1870, and in 1896 Colonel Dixon 
showed us birds in his aviary which had been captured 
at Astle the previous summer. In the valleys of the 
Mersey and Bollin the bird is now well established. 
In 1893 three examples were shot in Ashton-on- 
Mersey, and since that date we have both seen young 
birds and found nests there and in the adjoining parish 
of Partington. In the same year one was shot at 
Timperley; and the keeper in Dunham Park, who had 
never seen Turtle Doves in the district before, reported 
to us that a pair had nested in the Headsman’s Covert, 
and that he frequently saw the birds feeding on the 
corn strewn for the Pheasants. He shot one of the 
old birds, which is now in the Grosvenor Museum, 
Chester. Mr. J. J. Cash informs us that he frequently 
heard a Turtle Dove purring in a covert near Knob Hall, 
Baguley, in 1896; and in 1898 and 1899 Coward several 
times saw birds in a wood at Ashley. 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 329. 
