240 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vm. 



one of the men on the estate placed a thick stick across 

 the opening, and this the Nuthatches quickly plastered 

 firmly in, quite closing the opening made by the Starlings. 

 The birds were seen carrying the mud from a duck pond 

 some distance away and also from a cow-yard and rubbish 

 heap close by. The nest has been preserved. 



R. Oswald Blyth. 

 [Mr. Bond's nest was found at East Grinstead (c/., Zool., 

 1871, p. 2850), and it is curious that this second record 

 should be from the same county. — Eds.] 



GREAT GREY SHRIKES IN SURREY AND KENT. 



On January 30th, 1915, I shot an adult female Great Grey 

 Shrike {Lanivs e. excubitor) in Surrey, on a bit of moorland 

 dotted about with trees. It is of the form known as 

 Pallas's Grey Shrike with one white bar on the wing. 



G. K. Baynes. 

 On January 26th, while walking within two miles of 

 Tunbridge Wells, I saw and watched for half-an-hour a 

 Great Grey Shrike. S. Kendall Barnes. 



BREEDING-HABITS OF THE MISTLE-THRUSH. 



I HAVE recently come across a most excellent paper on " The 

 Nesting of a Pair of Mistle-Thrushes," by N. M. Richardson 

 {Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist, and Ant. Field Club, XXIII., pp. 67- 

 86). As this is somewhat inaccessible to many ornithologists 

 I give a resume of it. The nest was started on March 8th, 

 1901, and finished on March 11th; the eggs were laid on 

 March 17th, 18th, and 19th, and the hen commenced to 

 sit on March 20th. The young hatched on April 3rd (fourteen 

 days), and the old birds swallowed the pieces of eggshell. 

 The cock did practically all the feeding and the hen all the 

 sitting ; they both cleaned the nest (but usually the cock), 

 swallowing the faeces until the last day or two, when they 

 carried them away. The first two young flew on April 18th, 

 and the third the next day. The hen regularly left the nest 

 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. for 15 or 20 minutes. 



There are detailed lists of the times of feeding and the 

 food brought ; these show that the average intervals between 

 the feedings decreased irregularly from 18f and 19 minutes 

 on the first two days to 7| and 5^ minutes on the last two. 

 The longest interval was 33 minutes, and the shortest one 

 minute. G. Bathurst Hony. 



[Careful observations such as those given above are 

 always valuable even where facts may be regarded as 



