PArds. 9711 



during the last year. The grub of the cockchaffer {Scarabmis Melo- 

 loniha) has also been very abundant, and has done considerable damage 

 to the potato crop, by eating into the tubers and spoiling the sample • 

 in digging my garden this season I have dug hundreds up; my 

 potatoes were quite disfigured by them. 



Sand il/ar</«.— Half a dozen of these summer visitants were seen 

 hawliing over the Yorkshire Ouse on the 9th of April. 



Yello^ohammer.~l:\,^ " goldy " of the Yorkshire lads is a very late 

 bmlder; I have frequently found the nest and eggs as late as 

 October; last year I found a nest, with four eggs, the first week in 

 September, and some years ago I found a nest, with young ones, the 

 first week in October, in a hedge on the high moors of Yorkshire. 



House Sparroiv.~-i:h^xB is a peculiarity about the pairing of house 

 sparrows that 1 have never seen in print. In our village it is the 

 custom to buy sparrows ; female birds were a halfpenny each and male 

 birds a penny ; so that all the males were destroyed that could be got 

 The sportsmen used, when the birds had paired, to shoot the male 

 and It was invariably the case that the female found another mate, who' 

 generally fell a prey to the gun; in this way I have known a female 

 widowed seven times and seven times to supply herself with a mate 

 before she would forsake the place so fatal to them. 



Missel Thrxish.-Orx the 8th of May I made a careful examination 

 of the nest of a missel thrush ; it was placed on the fork of an apple- 

 tree, and owing, I think, to the frequent interruptions during the 

 lambmg season, the nest with four eggs was forsaken. A foundation 

 of soft mud had been laid on the tree, and upon this the nest was 

 built; the outer portion was composed of twigs of Scotch larch, inter- 

 woven with sheep's wool, and the whole was lined with blades of grass 

 neatly, compactly and smoothly laid; the wool nearest to the ed°ge of 

 the nest hung in large locks, and made the nest very conspicuous, but 

 no portion of the wool was used in any other way than interwoven 

 with the sticks that formed the outside of the nest. This bird seems 

 to like a fringe hanging round the edge of the nest. A good house- 

 wife on the high moors hung her lace collar out to bleach and dry • 

 when It was wanted it was gone, nor was it found until it was dis- 

 covered interwoven with a missel thrush's nest. A young girl in our 

 village also lost several yards of lace, some white silk ribbon and 

 a worked collar, which had been hung on the garden-hedge and some 

 gooseberry bushes to bleach ; about a fortnight after a missel thrush's 

 nest, taken in an orchard near to the garden, was brought to me ; the 

 lace, ribbon and collar were woven among the outer sticks, and hung 



