92 BRITISH BIRDS. 



might have had it in my hand. I have handled three York- 

 shire specimens in the flesh, and lent the late Lord Lilford 

 the bird that I picked up dead in Filey Bay, for Mr. Thorburn 

 to paint, for reproduction in his book, " Birds of the British 

 Isles." Both Lord Lilford and the late Professor Newton told 

 me long ago that they saw no reason why the Brunnich should 

 not be found breeding on our cliffs, and the former always 

 considered it a large form of the Common Guillemot, and 

 looked upon the Common Guillemot, viz., ours, as a local race 

 of the Briinnich's. I have examined scores of Guillemots at 

 different times, both in winter and summer plumage, and 

 have found all gradations, between the Briinnich's, the large 

 Baltic race — and ours — running into one another. 



OXLEY GRABHAM. 



Land Birds Nesting in Holes on the wind-swept islands 

 off the west coast of Ireland is the subject of an interesting 

 note by Mr. R. J. Ussher in the "Irish Naturalist" for 

 July (p. 159). He quotes Mr. H. M. Wallis's discovery of 

 eggs attributed to the Reed- Bunting at the end of burrows 

 two feet long on a lofty stack in the Aranmore Islands. 

 This observation was published in the " Transactions of 

 the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc," Vol. IV., Pt. IV., 

 p. 467, and though the birds were not seen, the feggs are 

 undoubtedly correctly identified. Mr. Ussher in the " Birds of 

 Ireland," p. 77, mentions a nest " well under a boulder " on an 

 island in Lough Mask. With regard to the Meadow-Pipit 

 which has been recorded by Major Trevelyan (British Biiids, I., 

 p. 94) as nesting in holes in the ground, the case is less 

 remarkable, as in Iceland according to Hantzsch ( Vogelwelt 

 Islands, p. 318) it breeds frequently tolerably deep down in 

 lateral fissures in the ground, quite invisible from above; and 

 a nest found by me in the side of a Roman fosse in Dorset 

 was in a hole four or five inches deep in the steep side of the 

 ditch. The third species which has been found breeding in a 

 burrow is the Wren, which was found nesting in a Puffin's hole 

 on the Blaskets by Mr. W. H. Turle (Ibis, 1891, p. 6). Mr. 

 Ussher suggests that this adaptation to circumstances has the 

 double advantage of giving shelter from the weather and 

 protection from the voracious Gulls. Readers may also be 

 reminded of a remarkable record in our last volume (Vol. II., 

 p. 380) of a Wood- Warbler apparently nesting in a rabbit-hole. 



F. C.R.J. 



