5070 THE ZooLoGist—SEPr EMBER, 1876. 
unusual) they will argue that they never could have happened. 
The other day, in North Cornwall, we saw a sky lark perched 
upon the topmost twig of a tall bush in a hedge, singing lustily. 
But to state such an occurrence as this is like throwing down the 
gauntlet for anyone who has not seen a sky lark so behaving to 
take up. In foreign countries the conduct of some of our familiar 
English birds is so abnormal that a great demand will seem to be 
made on the credulity of some by the mere statement of them. 
Audubon has recorded the fact that the herring gull,—the com- 
monest of all our sea-gulls, which nests on every part of our cliffs, 
and the sight of whose beautiful eggs has been the delight of 
many a holiday excursionist to the sea-side, as, leaning over the 
edge, he has looked down on the clutches resting on the ledges 
beneath him,—that our well-known and beautiful herring gull so 
far forgets itself as to be found breeding in communities in trees ! 
In Mr. Harvie Brown’s article in the ‘Ibis, which we have 
already referred to, we are told that on the Petchora it is quite 
common to see the common snipe perched high up on trees. He 
states that he saw one sitting on the topmost upright twig of a 
bare larch, seventy feet from the ground, from which it was 
uttering “its curious, double ‘clucking’ note.” To make sure 
that there was no mistake in the matter, a snipe was shot when 
perched on a high tree. ‘‘Nor is the common snipe the only 
bird which, not practising the habit with us, we found perching 
freely in Northern Russia: the snow bunting and pipits have 
already been instanced; and we may also mention the common 
gull. The curlew also was seen to perch on bushes and trees at 
Sujma, near Archangel, by Alston and Harvie Brown, in 1872. 
There can be little doubt, we imagine, that this habit was induced’ 
in the first instance by the flooding of great tracts of country by 
the annual overflow of the rivers in spring, just at the time of the 
passage of the migratory flights, and, further, that what was 
originally forced upon them has become, by use, a favourite 
habit.” Dr. Coues states that Branta Canadensis, the commonest 
wild goose of North America, nests, in various parts of the Upper 
Missouri and Fellowstone regions, in trees; and adds, “ This fact 
of arboreal nidification is probably little known, and might even 
be doubted by some.” But there are others of the Anatidz, such 
as the wood duck and the common goldeneye, which place their 
nests in trees, and carry their young down to the water in their 
