NOTES FROM THE LAKE DISTRICT. 119 
Towards the end of April, 1877, I paid several visits to the low- 
lying moorland in the vicinity of Broughton-in-Furness, and found 
that ten or twelve pairs of Curlews had returned to their breeding 
haunts, though they did not appear to have actually commenced 
nesting. Every effort to discover the eggs of this species, repeated 
throughout the following month, proved unavailing, and the nearest 
approach to the desired discovery was a nest from which the young 
had evidently just been hatched, which I came across on May 
26th, whilst beating up a small piece of marshy ground situated in 
a deep hollow among the fells. In the same locality the number 
of Carrion Crows’ nests was very noticeable. Almost every one 
of the stunted thorn-bushes, which are here sparsely scattered about 
on the hills, seemed to be occupied by one of these nests, placed 
at a height of about ten feet from the ground. Most of them were 
evidently old ones, and it seemed as if the Crows had occupied the 
locality undisturbed for many generations. One nest contained 
four young ones on May 19th. Some Common Sandpipers, which 
I met with on the edge of a small tarn during an excursion amongst 
the fells, appeared to be breeding, but a search after their eggs 
proved unavailing. 
I am glad to say that the Buzzard is still plentiful on the 
Cumberland hills. On May 5th an energetic friend, who spends most 
of his spare time amongst the hills, bronght me three eggs which he 
had obtained with great difficulty from a crag near Black Apron. 
His efforts to trap the old birds had failed, as had a previous 
attempt made by a keeper in another locality.* 1 learnt from this 
same keeper that the Dotterel is still to be found on the mountains 
about Wastwater, but hitherto all his attempts to discover their 
eggs have failed. On one occasion he could have killed three or 
four at a shot on the mountain known as “ The Screes,” but resisted 
doing so for the sake of the eggs he was hunting for. At the foot 
of this lake I was shown a fir tree from which the nest of a Buzzard 
was taken last spring. The situation was considered by the natives 
to be a most unusual one. 
The most interesting specimen which came under my immediate 
* If the unfortunate birds are trapped as well as their eggs taken, our 
correspondent will very soon be unable to rejoice that the Buzzard is plentiful. 
We deprecate this wholesale destruction of both old and young. If a “sitting” 
of eggs is taken, not much harm is done, for the birds in all probability will lay 
again; but if at the saine time the birds are trapped or shot, what then ?—Ep, 
