NATURAL HISTORY NOTES IN HOLLAND. 11 
visits generally had to be paid early in the morning, and I cannot 
recommend 6 A.M. as a pleasant time for swimming about cold 
bogs and wandering, in puris naturalibus, over a floor of sharp 
reeds searching for eggs. We were fortunate enough once to find 
an old boat, half-sunk in the mud, and managed to launch it, but 
our appearance, with nothing on but hats and bathing-drawers, 
must have been an unwonted spectacle for any passers by. 
It is curious to note how some nearly-allied species (only 
- differentiated by slight variations of plumage) resemble, and in 
fact are identical with, each other in habits, mode of nidification, 
colour of eggs and song. I cannot, for instance, recognize the 
slightest difference in these respects between Motacilla lugubris 
and M. alba, Acredula rosea and A. caudata, Cyanecula Wolfi and 
C. suecica, though of the last I ought to say that I cannot speak 
positively as regards the song, my recollection of swecica in 
Norway not being good enough. The notes of the British and 
White-headed Long-tailed Tits are identical, as are also those of 
the Pied and White Wagtails, and of Motacilla flava, M. viridis 
and M. Raw.* : 
A nest of six eggs of Baillon’s Crake, Porzana Bailloni, was 
brought to us, but these had been taken the previous year, and 
out of a lot of Willow Wrens I picked out the most abnormally 
small egg I have seen; it only measured ‘383 by °328 inches. 
What a pity it is that such a pretty bird as the Hoopoe 
should have such repulsive habits, and that, in cleanliness, it 
should be inferior to a Jackdaw. It is the belief of the country 
people, a belief shared in by many of the better classes, that it 
builds its nest of human ordure, and any one who has ever 
closely approached a Hoopde’s nesting-hole, or a batch of young 
ones, would certainly from the stench respect the popular 
impression. A nest of five young, about a fortnight old, was seen 
* By these last three names we presume our contributor intends to designate 
the Grey, the Grey-headed, and Ray’s Wagtails; but as the nomenclature now 
stands (Yarrell’s Hist. Brit. Birds, 4th ed., vol. i., pp. 552, 558, 564) they should be 
called Motacilla sulphurea, Bechstein, M. flava, Linneus, and M. Raii (Bonaparte), 
in the order named. WM. viridis, if we are not mistaken, is the Indian form of the 
European WM. cinereicapilla, not to be distinguished, in our opinion, from M. flava. 
We have never experienced any difficulty in distinguishing the note of the Grey 
Wagtail from that of Ray’s Wagtail; indeed, we have frequently been made aware 
of the arrival of the former bird in winter by hearing its note from the bed of a 
stream in which for a few moments it has been hidden from view.—ED. 
