DAN MEINERTZHAGEN'S DIARY. 70 



May 31 st. Bob brought back three eggs, but 

 failed to shoot the Buzzard. It's getting 

 awfully hot. The water even in the fell streams 

 is quite warm, and insects of all sorts are 

 swarming. I got a lot of eggs of Brambling and 

 Mealy Redpole to-day, also some Waxwings, 

 and a Pine Grosbeak. One's time indoors 

 is so much taken up with blowing and marking, 

 one has scarcely any time to write a diary. 



June ist. A man brought in to-day, an egg, 

 which he swore was a Tengmalm's Owl's. 

 He had taken it from a Golden Eye nest-box, 

 and had, he said, seen an Owl come out. But 

 it is evidently a diminutive Golden Eye's 

 egg, as its colour and hard shell testify. 

 Another man this evening brought in a clutch 

 of eight Duck's eggs taken from a tree. The 

 bird, he says, was white, and there are certainly 

 numerous white feathers among the down, 

 which he fortunately brought with the eggs. 

 The House Martins are simply swarming. 



I got a splendid clutch of five Tengmalm's 

 Owl's eggs all containing embryos, two fairly 

 large ones. One of the eggs is much bigger 

 than the rest, almost the size of an Hawk Owl's 

 egg. The rest was in an old stump not five 

 feet high, open at the top, which I had noticed 

 one and a half month's ago. 



