The Zoologist — February, 1867. G01 



being short and round, while others are long and oval. Those I have 

 found here have .been generally of a sea-green ground, blotched and 

 clouded at one end with light brown, and marked and spotted over 

 this with blackish spots. In a nest there are always some of a darker 

 ground than the others, and generally one or two with the markings 

 crowded at the small end instead of the large end. Some are of a 

 green ground, lightly streaked with olive-brown and no dark markings. 

 One variety I have, in which the ground is a dark sap-green or greenish 

 brown, mottled closely all over with lilac-brown and dark brown spots, 

 and measures one inch ten and a half lines in length by one inch two 

 lines in breadth. The smallest size I have found them is one inch 

 six lines in length by one inch two lines in breadth. The nest of the 

 crow is built of green twigs, in most cases torn, as is the case with 

 that of the rook, from the surrounding branches of the tree, and is 

 nearly always placed in the fork of a tree at some distance from the 

 top. The sticks are cemented together with clay, and the lining of 

 the nest is wool, hair and rags, the interior measuring eight inches in 

 diameter. The crow easily deserts its nest if it is climbed up to 

 during its building. A pair near here built three nests in the same 

 tree, deserting each as it was discovered and examined. 



Rook. — The rooks are as numerous here as they are in any part of 

 England : within six miles of the garrison there are seven rookeries. 

 They commenced to build this year in the second week in March, and 

 by the end of the month a good many were sitting. In one or two 

 instances, where I could observe the birds at work all the day long, 

 I noticed distinctly that the old nests were repaired, but the majority 

 of the nests were new, the old ones being pulled down during the first 

 week in March. Though I found a great variety among the eggs I 

 examined, I did not meet with any of the very small eggs which 

 rooks sometimes lay. Many have very deep markings at the smaller 

 end, and eggs in the same nest with this sort have no markings at all 

 save a few straw-like streaks of brown. I have one egg in my collec- 

 tion the ground colour of which is yellowish green. 



Bam Owl. — On the 24lh of March two eggs of this bird, which I 

 have in my collection, were found laid on a truss of hay at the top of 

 a barn : they were some distance apart from one another, and the little 

 girl who found them placed them together. The next day I visited 

 the spot, and found a third laid, aud the whole carefully covered up 

 with straw. These three I took, aud on the following morning two 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. II. L 



