VOL. vni.] 



NOTES. 



75 



even eight," but no other authority to whom I have been 

 able to refer gives more than seven as the maximum. 



Lewis R. W. Loyd. 

 [Clutches of eight eggs of the Robin have been recorded 

 on several occasions, from Fifeshire, N.B. {Ann. Scott. Nat. 

 Hist., 1906, p. 143), North Wales (C. S. Meares), etc. Mr. 

 E. B. Dunlop found a nest with nine eggs near Windermere 

 in 1905, and noted that the eggs were not all laid on con- 

 secutive days. He also mentions a nest with ten eggs. — 

 F.C.R.J.] 



CURIOUS SITE FOR A BLACKBIRD'S NEST. 



This spring a Blackbird {Turdus m. merula) has nested in 

 a very strange place. A deep sewer was being constructed 



BLACKBIRD'S NEST IN AN EXCAVATION 16 FEET FROM 

 THE SURFACE. 



{Photographed by Mr. C. Hennell). 



and excavations were made some twenty feet deep in a 

 sandy soil involving boards and struts ; at an angle in the 

 boarding sixteen feet below the surface, as sliown in the 

 photograph, a Blackbird built her nest and laid four eggs. 

 Notwithstanding the fact that the trench Mas used and 

 workmen constantly passed the nest, she hatched ofP three 

 eggs, and A\hen the young had flo\^•n the trench was fiUed in. 

 This was in an open field about fifty yards from a \\'Ood. 



Walter Cave. 



