VOL. xm ] NOTES. 163 



passed again, and the third bird flew up fronx the ground and 

 joined them and all three flew away southwards in extended 

 order, the one being hotly pursued and still viciously mobbed 

 by small birds, mostly Meadow-Pipits, afl the time uttering 

 its usual note. 



On another occasion I watched a fight between a Snipe and 

 a Cuckoo over our camp at a great height. 



H. F. Stoneham. 



ONE MEADOW-PIPIT FEEDING TWO YOUNG 

 CUCKOOS. 



Mr. T. a. Coward's note on p. 139 of a pair of Meadow-Pipits 

 feeding two j^oung Cuckoos, is somewhat similar to one which 

 I sent to Brit. Birds (Vol. Ill, p. 164) some years ago, except 

 that in my experience there was only one Pipit which fed the 

 two Cuckoos alternately. The district where I made this 

 observation is the moors north of Scarborough. Meadow- 

 Pipits are very common on these moors, but the Cuckoo is 

 not a specially common bird, and one would imagine that 

 there are always enough Pipits' nests available to make it 

 unlikely that two Cuckoos' eggs need be put into the same 

 one. Would not any small bird which had reared one young 

 Cuckoo be likely to feed another which chanced along and 

 began crying for food, even though its own foster-child was 

 already claiming much attention ? 



E. Arnold Wallis. 



LITTLE OWL BREEDING IN SHROPSHIRE. 



As the increase and spreading of the Little Owl {Athene 

 n. nodna) is a subject of some interest it may be worth while 

 recording that Mr. T. H. Robins found it breeding for the 

 first time in this district in 1919 in a hollow tree at the Croft, 

 Morville, near Bridgnorth. Little Owls were seen there 

 in 1918, having been reported in the neighbourhood in 1917. 

 The young ones were only discovered to be Little Owls when 

 able to fly. Mr. T. H. Robins then shot one (he had previously 

 protected them, believing the nest to be that of a Tawny Owl), 

 and sent the body to me. The bird was fully fledged but 

 unmistakably only just out of the nest. 



I have heard of so many Little Owls being seen in the 

 same locality that it is probable a second nest was somewhere 

 in the vicinity but escaped detection. 



Frances Pitt. 



[The Little Owl was first definitely recorded as breeding 

 in Shropshire by Mr. Forrest, antea, p. 30. Eds.] 



