162 COUNTRY RAMBLES. 



Nature graciously supplies us with so many studies that one hardly 

 knows where to begin and where to end describing (feeble though 

 the description may be) those sights and sounds with which we may 

 happen to be brought into contact. 



18th. Thermometer in the garden registered over 100 degrees 

 at 8 a.m. Skylark singing; no stifling atmosphere, no cold winds 

 or driving rain damps the ardour of this blithe bird. 



19th. Very hot. I have not heard the Nightingale singing at 

 night this last few evenings, although I went out specially last night 

 to see if I could hear it. Now that the nesting season is in full 

 swing, the song period has ceased, I suspect. My brother caught a 

 young Jay to-day, and brought me an egg of the Turtle Dove (quite 

 fresh), Blackcap (sitting fairly hard), and two Chin Chaffs. He tells 

 me that a day or two since he rested under a tree during the heat of 

 the day, and noticed the trouble a Robin was in and he could not 

 understand what the bird was making such a fuss about. The next 

 day he found to his astonishment that he had been laying down with 

 his head over a nest of young Redbreasts. 



20th. Showery, but bright between. Lark and Hedge Sparrow 

 singing I have not heard the latter singing for some considerable 

 time, I think. 



Birds also singing: Willow Wren, Chaffinch, Blackcap, Greater 

 Whitethroat, Robin, Blackbird, Wren, and Three Pipit. Cuckoo calling 

 continously at 8 p.m. 



They were cutting a crop of Sainfoin in this district to-day. 



Two eggs of the Great Auk were sold to-day at Mr. Steven's 

 Auction Rooms, King-street, Covent Garden, London. One of them 

 fetched a record price, namely 330 15s. 



The following particulars are taken from the " Daily Mail " : 

 *' Even the smaller, and, in comparison, poor specimen which 

 was offered fetched 180 guineas five guineas more than in 1894, 

 when it brought its lucky owner 175 guineas. The history of this 

 particular egg is interesting. A young fellow attended a furniture 

 sale in Kent, riding to the place on his bicycle Among some odd 

 fossils he caught sight of two large eggs. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances he would have got the lot for about eight shillings, but a 

 man who wanted the fossils started the bidding, and ran him to 

 thirty-six shillings. In the end the eggs, which travelled home tied 

 up in a pocket handkerchief on the back of the bicycle, turned out to 

 be those of the Great Auk, and one of them proving a handsome 



