The Zoologist — September, 1867. 915 



Marlins " building-in" a Sparrow. — Mrs. Otway this morning told me the fol- 

 lowing anecdote: — While she was staying, a few years since, al Thane Park, in 

 Oxfordshire, she often used to amuse herself hy watching the industrious martins, just 

 returned for the summer months, who were repairing their old nests and making new 

 ones. A certain martin's nest, built under the eaves of the house, was taken possession 

 of by an impudent sparrow : the nest was nearly finished, and the sparrow, having laid 

 eggs, was sitting upon them ; but the martins, not approving of such an interloper, 

 literally built the poor sparrow into the nest with mud — that is, they closed up the 

 entrance-holes, and the sparrow was suffocated. The above is quite true; several 

 persons can prove it to have taken place. — Alexander Clark-Kennedy ; Teddington t 

 Middlesex, August 7, 1867. 



Number of Eggs laid by the Stvifl : the Sivifl only perches on its Nest. — For the 

 information of Mr. Sterland, who says in his last interesting communication [in the 

 'field'] that he never found more than two eggs in the nest of the swift, I beg to say 

 that I have in three or four instances found three eggs in a nest, but never four. 

 I believe a surprising fact regarding this interesting bird is that it never alights except 

 in its nest. The country people about here say that it cannot rise if it gets on to the 

 ground; but this is not so, for I have put them on the grouud several times, and with 

 some difficulty they get from the ground iu three or four yards. — W. Pamell ; Crewe. 

 — From the ' Field.' 



[In the ' Dictionary of British Birds' (p. 337) and in my ' Birdsnesting' (p. 2), it 

 is stated that the eggs of the swift are two in number; both statements are made from 

 actual observation by competent observers: it is therefore most interesting that any 

 naturalist should in three or four instances have found three eggs in the nest of the swift. 

 I may add that I have repeatedly seen the swift clinging to a wall; and during the last 

 summer I captured one with my hand in a willow-tree, where it was perched sedately 

 enough, but it was a very young bird, and had probably taken its first flight from a 

 church-tower close by. — E. Newman] 



Quail nesting in Essex. — A fortnight ago a friend kindly gave me an egg pur- 

 porting to be that of a landrail taken from a nest of eleven eggs by a farmer, about 

 five miles from here : it proved to be a quail's egg. Tt having been found in a clover- 

 field, my friend had imagined it the egg of a landrail. List season or the season 

 before a nest was found on Sir Charles Smith's estate in the same neighbourhood. — 

 W. Jesse ; Maisonette, Ingatestone, Essex, August 19, 1867. 



Sijuacco Heron at Weymouth. — A living specimen of the squacco heron (Buphus 

 comatus, Gould ; Ardea comata, Yarrell) was brought to me on Monday, the 1st of 

 July. It is a mature bird, with the occipital plumes. It had been observed during 

 the whole of the Sunday at different parts of the Fleet water at Wyke Regis, near this 

 town. On Monday it was shot at and wounded only. I tried it with food, and, as all 

 my attempts to make it feed were useless, I sent it on Tuesday to Mr. Leadbeater for 

 preservation. The man who brought it to me states that it was not at all shy, but got 

 very excited at the appearance of a dog, and this I afterwards found to be a fact. — 

 William Thompson; Weymouth. — From the 'Field.' 



Green Sandpiper near Ingatestone, Essex.— On the 18th of August, while sitting 

 on the lawn, a specimen of the green sandpiper came and hovered over our pond, not 

 five yards from where I was sitting, but, being frightened by my retriever, as sud- 

 denly took his departure: the whistle was so shrill as to make me start with surprise. 

 — W. Jesse. 



