1214 The Zoologist— May, 1806. 



another on the water and among the reeds, ruffling up their feathers, 

 and putting their heads down and tails up : I observed a pair of birds, 

 either coots or gallinules, flying high up over the water in wide circles. 

 The courtship of the gallinnle was going on, the male chasing his 

 mate on the island among the reeds and on the water, with head drawn 

 close up and on a level with the water, the female moving her head 

 backward and forward, and jerking her tail and expanding it. But 

 the sun having set, as the evening shades gathered round the pool, 

 quantities of pied wagtails came Sitting to the trees above me, and as 

 their companions arrived they joyously flitted out a few yards to meet 

 them, welcoming them with a pretty little song, not unlike a portion 

 of the pipit's song : I had never heard them utter any other than their 

 ordinary chirping notes : gradually they settled down to roost on the 

 bushes of elder and on reeds, twittering the while, but whenever a rook 

 made his appearance, on his way home to the rookery close by, 

 the whole flock rose and chased it till some distance off, twittering the 

 while in great anger. 



Rookery at Great Stretton. — Being anxious to procure some rooks' 

 eggs for my collection, I rose before five on the morning of the 1st of 

 April, and after a walk of five miles reached the rookery at Great 

 Stretton, before the sun had dispelled the thick mist which hung over 

 the valleys. The rookery is a small plantation of ash-poles of about 

 three or four acres, with a lew larger trees in it. To my astonishment 

 the nests are built on the ash-poles, not more than fifteen or twenty 

 feet from the ground. On my approach the whole cloud of rooks rose 

 from their nesls and flew high overhead, uttering dolorous cawings. 

 The nests were composed of the usual materials — sticks and twigs, 

 interwoven and lined with fine haj - , &c. The eggs in each nest were 

 mostly five or six, and they varied a good deal both in size and 

 colouring; one is like a jackdaw's, only lighter, while another is very 

 darkly speckled with olive at the thick end. In the beginning of 

 spring last year a colony of rooks built in an ash-pole plantation half- 

 a-mile from Leicester, and when the eggs were all laid, the gamekeeper 

 pulled down all the nests, since which they have deserted the place. 



Arrival of Summer Mujrants. — April 18. During the past week a 

 cold east wind has prevailed, and the many summer migrants which 

 have arrived have kept mostly concealed, aud have sung very little. 

 I first heard the chiffchaff on the 3rd of April singing in a sheltered 

 corner of Shethedges Wood, aud the garden warbler aud the wheatear 

 on the 7th. 



