nOTES 



LONG-TAILED TITMOUSE BUILDING AT UNUSUAL 



HEIGHT. 

 There must be few of the smaller birds that build at a more 

 variable height than the Long-tailed Titmouse {M. caudatus 

 roseus). Those nests at what may be called an ordinary 

 height, say from four to ten feet from the ground are common 

 enough, and heights up to twenty feet or so on the bough 

 of an oak are fairly frequent in the Weald of Sussex and 

 Kent, and probably elsewhere also. Elevations higher 

 than this seem to have been seldom recorded, but this may 

 to a considerable extent be due to the difficulty of finding 

 them, especially when they are built in the tops of such trees 

 as conifers. Had it not been that my brother watched the 

 birds building, a nest whose height I measured on April 

 2nd last in S.W. Kent would probably have passed unnoticed. 

 It was situated in the tufted top of an otherwise branchless 

 fir tree, fifty-seven feet from the ground. The Rev. F. C. R. 

 Jourdain informs me that he has a note of one in a similar 

 situation in Derbyshire in 1898, thirty feet from the ground ; 

 Mr. C. B. Wharton recorded one {Zool., 1882, p. 187) at fifty 

 feet, in an oak ; while one mentioned in the Birds of Yorkshire 

 (p. 107), as being inside an old Magpie's nest, was probably 

 at a considerable elevation, though no figure is given. 



N. F. TiCEHURST. 



EARLY ARRIVAL OF REDSTART IN NORTHUMBER- 

 LAND. 

 On March 27th at 6 a.m. I heard the notes of a strange bird, 

 and on looking out saw a cock Redstart {Ph. ph. phoenicurus) . 

 Later in the day I saw it again, searching for iiies among the 

 rocks at the foot of Bamburgh Castle, and was able to be quite 

 certain of identification. It had no white on the wings, and 

 its notes were undoubtedly those of a Common Redstart. 



Audrey Gordon. 



INCREASE OF PREDACEOUS BIRDS. 

 During the war, owing to the withdrawal of gamekeepers, 

 there has been a considerable increase of what is called 

 " vermin," in our neighbourhood (Burwash, Sussex). The 

 woodlands of Dallington Forest, and many other extensive 

 woods, coverts, and coppices in this part of the Weald, gave 

 harbourage for the almost unrestricted increase of Jays, 



