VOL. vm.] NOTES. 173 



CUCKOO LAYING IN HOUSE-SPARROW'S NEST. 



With reference to Mr. H. E. Forrest's note (antca, p. 9S), 

 I may add that while staying at a house near HoUingbourne, 

 Kent, in 1896, I noticed on two or three consecutive 

 mornings, at about seven o'clock, a Cuckoo frequented the 

 garden. On May 21st I saw it leaving a small yew-tree 

 growing a few feet from my window, in which I found a 

 Sparrow had built in and upon an old Blackbird's nest. 

 The Sparrow's nest contained three eggs of Passer domesticus 

 of a dull greyish ground-colour, uniformly and densely 

 speckled with pale brown, and one Cuckoo's egg with the 

 ground-colour pure white, blotched and spotted with different 

 shades of broAvn and grey. F. W. Frohawk. 



STONE-CURLEW BREEDING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



With reference to the editorial note on this subject on 

 page 121, Dr. Hartert, when he wrote the article on birds 

 for the Victoria History of Buckinghamshire (1905), was 

 mistaken in supposing that the Stone-Curlew had not 

 been heard in the county for years. At that time, one or 

 two pairs bred annually on a portion of the Fawley Court 

 estate just within the county boundary, and may do so 

 still for all I know. A few years ago I saw a single bird 

 when shooting the warren at Stonor, which is close to the 

 Bucks march. In Berkshire the Thicknee breeds regularly, 

 and seems to be slightly on the increase. Heatley Noble. 



When I came to Poynetts, Skirmett, fourteen and a half 

 years ago, Stone-Curlews were numerous here. Each summer 

 evening, after siuiset, beginning late in May, they used to 

 spend some hours flying backwards and forwards past the 

 house, screaming all the time. Whether each bird's '' beat " 

 was more than two or three hundred yards I do not know, 

 but they did just the same past Turville village, which is 

 three-quarters of a mile further north-west. The birds also 

 extended up the Chiltems to Turville Heath and into 

 Oxfordshire, and in fact for a good many miles south-west, 

 west and north; Saunderton, the parish in which the eggs 

 mentioned by your correspondent in October were " pro- 

 cured," is some seven miles north, and a point or two east of 

 the Hambleden valley which formed hereabouts roughly, to 

 the best of my knowledge., their eastern boundary. For 

 the last four or five summers, however, the birds have 

 apparently quite deserted this valley, for what reason I do 

 not know. Alfred H. Cocks. 



