OCCASIONAL NOTES. 255 
which the Chiffchaff’s nest is usually composed, and contained six eggs. 
Professor Newton mentions, in his edition of Yarrell, two instances in 
which this bird has been known to build in other situations than on the 
ground, and also refers to an instance of the Willow Wren having built at 
some distance from the ground. Probably these two species may nest off 
the ground more frequently than has been observed, or perhaps they may 
have done so, hoping to be more secure, after having had their nests on the 
ground destroyed or robbed.—J. E. Parmer (Lucan, Co. Dublin). 
How to Form a Rooxery.—Our gardener once told me that he had on 
different occasions induced Rooks to build near a house in trees where 
previously there had been no nests, by fixing, in the fork of a branch near 
the top of the tree, round platforms of strong twigs. These were made 
out of old besoms or brooms, and served as foundations for the nests.— 
Watter Sramprer (Oswaldkirk, York). 
Nestine Hasirs or tax Water Ouzet.—In reference to the breeding 
of the Water Ouzel (p. 218), the 9th of April is by no means an early date 
on which to take the full complement of eggs. Here they build and many 
lay before the end of March, and it is no unusual thing to find eggs by the 
middle of that month. On the 4th April last, a friend and I found some 
six or seven nests. One had no eggs in it, two others had full complements 
of freshly-laid eggs ; another had eggs hard set; and two more had young 
birds.—J. A. Harvig-Brown (Dunipace House, Larbert, N. B.) 
Barty, Nesting or tae Kinerisner.—With regard to the date of laying 
by the Kingfisher (p. 214), I have taken fresh eggs from a nest here on the 
25th April. The tunnel was remarkably dirty, and the fish-bones in it 
were rotten and crawling with maggots.—In. 
TurTLE-Doves BUILDING NEAR A DwELLING-HoUSE.—AS usual, a pair of 
Turtles (Columba turtur) are breeding in my grounds. They were first 
heard on or about the Ist of June, and are nesting in a Wych Elm not 
very far from the house——Tuomas Butt (The Wakes, Selborne). 
OccURRENCE OF THE Grey PHALAROPE IN CorNwALL IN May.—This 
Phalarope, Phalaropus platyrhynchus, was shot near Par a short time since 
with its summer plumage almost assumed, the under parts being—with the 
exception of a small admixture of white on a portion of the breast—of a 
brownish red from the chin to the vent. Ido not know of a single instance 
of this species remaining in the southern latitudes in the breeding season— 
certainly there is no recorded instance of its occurrence in Cornwall during 
that season. It appears pretty regularly in the autumn and sometimes late 
on in the winter on our coasts in uncertain numbers. Singularly enough, 
the specimen now under notice has only one leg; the other is entirely gone, 
and nothing remains to show that the limb ever existed. Whether this has 
