VOL. XV.] NOTES. 59 



Whitethroats {Sylvia c. communis) at Raughton Head, 

 Cumberland. I was out about 6 a.m. and the bushes and 

 hedges were full of them; by lo a.m. they had gone and 

 only the nesting pairs, which arrived there on May 6th and 

 7th, were left. E. U. .Savage. 



GREAT GREY SHRIKE IN STAFFORDSHIRE. 



On July loth, 1921, in early afternoon, hearing a, great commo- 

 tion amongst the Blackbirds, Thrushes and Chaffinches in 

 my garden, and cries of alarm from the mother hens on 

 my chicken-rearing ground adjoining, I went out to investigate 

 and was fortunate to observe a Great Grey Shrike {L. cxaibitor), 

 probably a male, in the act of slaying a young Greenfinch ; 

 he was under a v/illow tree about ten j^ards from the house, 

 and I had leisure to observe him for a good half minute. I 

 observed the same bird on a branch of the same willow tree 

 at 7.30 a.m. on the following morning, but he was being 

 subjected to such a merciless mobbing that he quickly made 

 off. 



I had two years' experience of this bird in Macedonia, in 

 parts of which they are quite common. 



This appears to be a very early date for the Great Grey 

 Shrike in Britain, and also rather far west. 



Roy Clayton. 



SPOTTED FLYCATCHER RETURNING TO DESERTED 



NEST. 



The well-known devotion of the Spotted Flycatcher [Musci- 

 capa s. striata) to an old nesting -site is well illustrated by 

 Mr. H. W. Mapleton-Bree's note {aniea, p. 42). I think 

 the following instance also v/orthy of record. 



On May 12th, 1919, a pair returned to their old nesting- 

 site in a clematis growing on the north wall of my house ; 

 by the 28th the female was sitting on four eggs. On June ist 

 the eggs had completely disappeared, birt the rrest was in no 

 way disarranged. 



The birds remained about the garden, but I did not see 

 them at the nest until on July ist I was surprised to observe 

 the pair renovating the old rrest, which had in the meantime 

 become mrrch bedraggled by heavy rains. They must have 

 been in a great hurry, for on the loth the hen was incubating 

 a clutch of four eggs. On the morning ct the 13th the eggs 

 had again completely disappeared, but the nest was, as 

 before, undamaged. The birds continued to hawk for flies 

 in the vicinity until the migration. 



