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OCCASIONAL NOTES. 405 
contained five eggs, easily identified as those of the Hawfinch. This is the 
only instance known to me of this species breeding in the neighbourhood. 
During the same year a female Hawfinch was caught in a garden at Newlay, 
having gorged itself with berries to such an extent as to prevent its escape. 
Another specimen was shot last December near Otley.—Watrer Raine 
(Leeds). 
Variety OF THE SporreD FLycarcuer’s Eecs.—In June last I met 
with a nest of curiously coloured eggs of the Spotted Flycatcher, a notice 
of which may perhaps be worth recording. The nest was placed upon one 
of the lateral branches of a pear tree trained against a wall, and when 
discovered, on June 13th, it contained two eggs. What I believe was the 
first laid one was of the usual type, but the other was very faintly spotted, 
and of the same ground colour as the former. The next day a third egg 
was deposited of a very pale blue, with not the faintest trace of a spot. 
The next egg laid was of the same colour as the third, and the fifth and last 
was almost white, and the shell was somewhat constricted near the small 
end. On June 18th I transferred nest and eggs to my collection. When 
blowing the eggs I noticed that the first and second had some blood-streaks, 
and in the third and fourth the yelk had settled down to one side; in the 
fifth there was apparently nothing but yelk. Does not this singular case 
point to a rapidly failing vital force of the bird while laying as the cause 
of the abnormal colouring of the eggs?—RosBrrr Service (Maxwelltown, 
Dumfries, N.B.) 
DesronTaine’s ‘ Birps or Barpary.—Referring to the notice of the 
reprint of Desfontaine’s Memoir of the Birds of Barbary in your last 
number (p. 376), may I be allowed to state that the entire work, text as 
well as plates (with the exception of Prof. Newton’s introductory remarks), 
was reproduced by photo-lithography? Its literal accuracy is therefore 
unimpeachable. I am glad to state that Sir Andrew Smith’s ‘ Birds of 
South Africa,’ which has hitherto been almost inaccessible from the extreme 
rarity of the ‘South African Journal,’ in which it was originally published, 
is printed, and only awaits the completion of the index for delivery. These 
works, with Tunstall’s ‘Ornithologia Britannica,’ already issued to the 
subscribers, and A. A. H. Lichtenstein’s ‘Catalogus rerum naturalium 
rarissimarum ’ (Hamburg, 1793), now in progress, will complete the issue 
of the Willughby Society for 1880.—W. B. Trexrmeier (Finchley, N.) 
TurtLe Dove BREEDING NEAR YorK.—I have eggs of the Turtle 
Dove in my collection, which were taken from a nest in a fir plantation at 
Acomb, near York. Four nests containing eggs were found within a short 
distance of each other. I think this worthy of record, because, so far as 
my experience goes, the Turtle Dove’s nest is a rarity so far north._— 
Water Rare (Leeds). 
