FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 125 



At 3.25 she left and returned at 3.35 with 5 green geometer 

 larvae. 



At 3.40 the hen again brought larvae and at 3.50 the cock 

 returned. I then left the nest. 



The above record is very incomplete ; I was quite unable 

 to keep pace with the birds, as often by the time I had changed 

 my plate and written down my note, one bird or the other 

 was back and away again. Moreover, my attention was 

 distracted by the very interesting event of a pheasant hatch- 

 ing a brood of 13 young about 6 or 7 feet from my tent, 

 within a couple of yards of the Chiff-chaff nest. During 

 the day the brood hatched off, and it was very interesting 

 to see an additional chick every once now and again push its 

 head out through its mother's feathers and take its first 

 view of a new and strange world, albeit that that world 

 consisted at the moment of a tangle of bramble and weeds on 

 the edge of a slimy ditch filled with decaying leaves (in which 

 I had the pleasure of sitting all day). 



Another distraction was the hatching of specimens of 

 Culex from that part of the ditch which was within my tent ; 

 these pests were not long in acquiring a bloodthirst, which 

 they satisfied on my face and hands, generally choosing a 

 moment when silence and stillness were imperative. 



On 4 June the young P. rufus had left the nest ; no doubt 

 they went before, but I was unable to visit the nest in the 

 interim, as I was ill and had to leave home. 



We missed the early part of the downward movement of 

 this bird somehow, but on the 30th August one was spoken 

 to and answered at Durlston Head, and two more were seen. 



On 16 Sept. seven or eight were seen in Poole Park. On 

 Sept. 26 at Abbey Croft Down, East Hemsworth, two more 

 \vere seen. A specimen of this bird wintered in Swanage ; 

 it was seen in. December by Dr. Penrose and has been visible 

 often in the Royal Victoria Hotel garden during the early 

 part of 1915. (W.P.C. and E.H.C.) 

 Locustella naevia (The Grasshopper Warbler). 



Heard at Canford 23 April by headkeeper Wren. (W.P.C.) 



