3IO MY COUNTRY WANDERINGS 



V. SOME JUNE NOTES 



What a splendid egg season the Summer of 

 1906 proved to be. I never remember such a 

 large number of Blackbirds' and Song Thrushes' 

 eggs, and I have noted with considerable interest 

 what a large proportion of the nests of these two 

 species were built right on the ground. Why is 

 this? Has this observation been made by any 

 readers in other districts? If so, I shall be glad 

 to hear from them. Large clutches of eggs, too, 

 seem to have been the rule rather than the excep- 

 tion. To cite an instance or two. The wild 

 Pheasants had enormous clutches, two nests in par- 

 ticular containing thirty-eight and forty-three eggs 

 being worth recording here. The gamekeeper 

 who pointed out these nests to me during an early 

 June ramble was of the opinion that three females 

 laid in the nest containing the clutch of thirty- 

 eight eggs, and five females were responsible for 

 the large clutch of forty-three eggs. 



It would seem impossible for one hen Pheasant 

 to attempt to incubate such a large clutch, 

 although the bird sitting on the thirty-eight eggs 

 tried hard to do so. She placed them as close 

 together as possible, but no matter how many 

 devices she resorted to she was unable to cover 

 successfully all her precious treasures. Several 



