VOL. XV.] NOTP_:S. 141 



snake slid down a bank and swam across some stagnant 

 water, still closely attended by the Wheatears. Their 

 excitement seemed to increase and I judged their nest or 

 young to be close by. The male bird suddenly flew to within 

 about a yard or two of me and back again to the snake, in a 

 manner which certainly suggested an appeal for help. I did 

 not move till the snake had advanced well clear of the water, 

 and then made a rush and despatched it. The whole 

 proceedings had occupied nearly half an hour. Not very 

 far from the same place I had on May gth found an open 

 nest of a Wheatear containing four eggs in a position exactly 

 similar to that of a Skylark {Alanda arvensis) under a small 

 tuft of grass. 



It is now seventeen years since I was in Sussex, and I 

 should be interested to learn whether Wheatears still continue 

 to nest in an old dismantled gun of one of the martello towers 

 near the Pevensey Sluices. 



On one occasion I remember opening out a rabbit-scrape 

 near Camber Castle, because I saw Wheatears showing an 

 anxious interest in it ; when I reached the nest, there was a 

 fat hedgehog with portions of broken shell adhering to his 

 person. A. H. Machell Cox. 



LITTLE OWL BREEDING IN CHESHIRE. 



The Little Owl {Athene n. mira) bred near Alderley Edge in 

 Cheshire in 1921. One of the old birds was seen by Mr. G. H. 

 Ramsbottom on May 29th and he subsequently found the 

 nesting hole. I saw both old birds and three fledged young 

 ones on Junr 22nd. Little Owls were seen near a farm a few 

 hundred yards from the nesting site in 1920, but I cannot find 

 dir-^ct evidence that they bred there. Mr. T. A. Coward 

 writes to me that for some three or four years Little Owls 

 have been noticed in different parts of Lancashire and Cheshire 

 but that this is the first actual observation of their nesting in 

 Cheshire that he can find. E. W. Hendy 



BEAN-GOOSE IN CHESHIRE AND N. WALES 

 IN SUMMER. 

 With reference to Mr. Pat on 's notes on the Bean-Goose 

 {A. fabalis) {antca, p. 88), the following may be of interest. 

 On June 15th, 1921, at 10.15 p.m. (summer time) I saw a line 

 of eleven Bean-Geese in Tranmere, Birkenhead, fl3'ing north. 

 They were probably making for the mud flats near the mouth 

 of the Mersey. They kept calling to one another, and flew 

 low down over the housetops. As it was still quite light, and 



