NOTES. 27 



DARTFORD WARBLER IN SUSSEX. 

 A male specimen of the Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata) 

 was shot by one of the watchers in Pett Level, Sussex, on 

 April 3rd, 1909, and was brought in the flesh to the Hastings 

 Museum on April 5th. 



W. H. Mullens. 



SOME SUSSEX RAVENS. 

 I doubt whether any inland breeding place is at the present 

 time used by Ravens in the county of Sussex, but should be 

 pleased to find that I am wrong. Borrer {Birds of Sussex) 

 mentions five inland localities where the Raven bred, or had 

 formerly done so, namely, Danny Park, Wolstonbury Hill, 

 Burton Park, Parham Park, Bramber Castle, and he also 

 refers to the Pet worth Park Ravens, so graphically described 

 by A. E. Knox (Orn. Rambles Sussex). In a previous number 

 of this magazine (Vol. II., p. 279) I have told of the destruction 

 of the Heathfield Park Ravens as late as 1876, and now put 

 on record the date of disappearance of the Ravens from 

 Ashburnham Place. The " Ravens' Toll," or clump, consists 

 to-day of sixteen ancient Scotch firs, scarred and weather- 

 beaten, but these remaining trees are evidently only a portion 

 of the original group which once crowned the knoll. They 

 stand not more than 150 yards within the palings of the deer 

 park of Ashburnham Place, which borders the high road 

 between Battle and Ninfield, and directly opposite to Agmer- 

 hurst House. It is a fitting position for a Raven's nest, for 

 the view embraces a great extent of fair country. Beachy 

 Head, the Downs, the Weald, and, immediately beneath, the 

 stately home of the Lords of Ashburnham, enveloped in woods 

 of noble oaks and beeches, with green park and broad waters. 

 When lately visiting this spot I had the advantage of being 

 accompanied by Thomas Hook, now eighty years of age, 

 who had passed all his life as one of the gamekeepers on the 

 estate, and with whom the nesting of the Ravens, which he 

 had watched from boyhood, was an event of annual interest. 

 He pointed out the actual tree in which the birds had nested ; 

 he never heard any complaint of damage to animals made 

 against these Ravens, they ate a dead fawn or hare, but never 

 to his knowledge attacked living ones. The late Earl of 

 Ashburnham had the young broods of Ravens shot yearly, 

 but never allowed the parents to be molested. They bred in 

 the " Ravens' Toll " annually, and for the last time in 1877, 

 but disappeared in 1878, the year in which the above-men- 

 tioned nobleman died. The coincidence of the two events 



