The Zoologist — July, 1874. 4077 



in Brittany were not those of the house sparrow, was their being so far from 

 town or village. I know what Montagu says, and doubtless Mr. Doubleday 

 is equally well informed as to what Yarrell has written upon the subject. 

 The house sparow generally builds in holes, and I have found their nests 

 placed between stems of ivy and the trunk of the tree. Personally, I have 

 had no opportunity of studying the habits of the tree sparrow, and what 

 I have been able to gather from various authors has not enlightened me 

 much. Even Montagu evidently knew little or nothing of the habits of 

 the species in 1802 ; he merely says, "it always makes its nest in trees, and 

 lays five eggs ; " and it was not tiU some ten years later that he found " two 

 nests of the tree sparrow with four eggs in each, in a decayed and pervious 

 pollard." He then, somewhat hastily I think, jumps to the conclusion that 

 it " never makes its nest amongst the branches of trees or in buildincrs." — 

 Henry HadfieU ; High Cliff, Tentnor, Isle of Wight, May 21, 1874. 



Starlings laying in the Hole of a Sand Martin.— Whilst searching for 

 eggs of the sand martin yesterday, in a pit at Heme, near Herae Bay, 

 I found one hole which had evidently been enlarged and lengthened, and 

 putting in my arm quite up to the shoulder, I found three eggs of the 

 common starling ; they were lying on the bare sand, without the slightest 

 attempt at a nest. The eggs are slightly more elongated than any that 

 I have previously taken. When I first entered the sand-pit I saw a large 

 bird fly out of one of the holes ; but it never occurred to me, until I found 

 the eggs, that it could be a starling : I supposed it to he a blackbird, and 

 almost expected to find one of the holes half choked up with a huge nest. — 

 A. G. Butler ; Sittingbourne, Kent, May 20, 1874.' 



Greater Spotted Woodpecker and Starlings.— The suhjoiued note has 

 been sent to me by a very reliable observer, residing at Keswick, near 

 Norwich, who writes, under date of the 23rd of May, to the following 

 effect : — " Early one morning in the beginning of this month I heard a 

 great deal of noise and chattering of birds on the top of an ash tree close by 

 my house, which I found to proceed from a pair of starlings and a male 

 greater spotted woodpecker fighting for the possession of a hole in the tree, 

 apparently for the purpose of nesting. First one would go in and then the 

 other, constantly driving each other away. This lasted for at least half an 

 hour, at the expiration of which the woodpecker left the starlings in quiet 

 possession of the hole, where they still remain. I have not seen the wood- 

 pecker since, but I hear him daily among the neighbouring trees." — J. H. 

 Gurney. 



Greater Spotted Woodpecker near Faruhani.— I saw a pair of these birds 

 near Farnham on the 23rd of May. I believe these birds to be rare in 

 this part. — W. H. Legg ; Farnham, Surrey, May 28, 1874. 



Pratincole at the Lizard, Cornwall. — I had an opportunity yesterday of 

 handling an adult full-plumaged bird of this species, which was captured 

 SECOND SERIES — VOL. IX. 2 N 



