OCCASIONAL NOTES. 213 
I have known the eggs taken by the 9th of that month. They have three 
or four very favourite places for nesting in. By a waterfall, when the nest, 
which is large, bulky, and roofed over like a Wren’s, is placed in a crevice 
of the rocks or stones, and though easily seen, generally very inaccessible ; 
in a culvert or tunnel, when it is placed in a hole in the wall or roof; under 
a bridge, in a hole of the arch, and often near the water: and under an 
overhanging bank, when, from its position and build, it much resembles 
that of the Common Wren. It is generally composed of moss and leaves 
outside, and lined with finer material in the shape of bents and grass; the 
roof generally overhangs the entrance, which is difficult to see unless you 
stoop down. The nest is large and bulky; the eggs five, six, and sometimes 
seven in number, white and pointed. When built by a waterfall the bird 
seems soon aware of your approach, and is very likely gone before you can 
catch sight of her. When built in a culvert or tunnel, which I have found 
the favourite place, they will sit very closely. I remember noticing a pair 
of these birds flying about a rather large drain, about four feet high and 
four wide, which conveyed a small streamlet under a road into the river. 
Feeling sure the nest must be in this drain, I asked a friend who was with 
me tosearch. He did so, but in vain. On returning some hours afterwards 
to the same spot there was the bird again; so nothing remained but to have 
another search. In I went, and crawling up the small tunnel on hands 
and knees, I groped about in the side-walls, but without success; at 
length, putting my hand up to the roof, which was made by large pieces of 
slate laid across, I discovered a crevice between two slates, into which 
I could just squeeze my fingers, and there sure enough was the nest with 
three eggs in it. My brother came the following year to look, and there 
was a nest in the same place with the old bird in it. He caught her, and 
let her go; there were two eggs, which he left in the nest. Coming some 
days after, and feeling sure she would forsake her nest, he was surprised, on 
getting to the nest, to observe the bird fly off, and, apparently not at all 
alarmed, settle within two yards of him ona stone. The nest contained 
five eggs, which were allowed to hatch. I doubt not that the same birds 
or their descendants occupy the same snug and secure home every season, 
and rear one or perhaps two broods undisturbed. The flight of these birds is 
rapid and generally near the water. I have seen them, in August, get up 
from very small mountain streams on the moors in Scotland. They have a 
short, melodious and rather powerful song. ‘Their cry of alarm is a short, 
shrill pipe, rather like that of the Kingfisher’s. I never saw one settle on 
a tree or land, but generally on stones and rocks in the river.— Hrnry 
GEorGe Tomiinson (The Woodlands, Burton-on-Trent). 
Nesting Hasirs or ra® Kinerisher.—Mr. Tomlinson is very accurate 
in his account of the breeding habits of this bird. They are, as he observes, 
