AUGUST 137 



hats, etc. It was in 1894 that I first saw a single 

 individual on the Sanctuary Loch at Monreith. In the 

 following year it returned with a mate and reared a 

 brood ; since which grebes have bred there every year. 1 



This bird now rears its young in many places where 

 its recent appearance created some excitement. I 

 happened not long ago to be staying at Osterley Park, 

 so near to malodorous Brentford, when word was 

 brought to Lord Jersey that there were two cor- 

 morants on the pond close to the high-road to 

 Isleworth. I went down at once to verify what would 

 indeed have been a remarkable visitation, and found 

 that the strangers were a pair of great crested grebes. 

 The quarters suited them ; they stayed to breed, and 

 now may be seen, not only there, but on many other 

 suburban sheets of water at Syon House, Richmond 

 Park, and even in populous Islington. If there were 

 but a few reed beds in the Serpentine, it is certain 

 that these fine birds would take up their abode there. 



Still more delightful is the reappearance of the 

 goldfinch loveliest and most innocuous of all the 

 genus. From some districts it had entirely vanished 

 for many years, owing to its being the easiest of all 

 song-birds to net with a decoy, and because it is in 

 constant request as a cage-bird. Not only may large 

 flocks now be seen in the autumn and spring migra- 

 tion (on a day in March 1912 a neighbour of mine, a 

 well-known field naturalist, counted eighty-three gold- 



1 In the spring of 1915 might be seen a singular group in a reed 

 bed on this loch, consisting of a swan and a great-eared grebe sitting 

 on their nests within three of four yards of each other. 



