NOTES AND QUEEIES. 229 



being on the river near Wroxham Church, Norfolk, T saw a Snipe sitting 

 on the top of a dead tree, about fifteen feet from the ground. On my 

 return journey I saw another near the same spot, sitting upon a gate-post. 

 Being in a light canoe, 1 approached within five or six yards of him before 

 he tooii flight. Again on March 31st, 1883, I saw two Snipe perching, 

 this time on the top of a live alder tree not far above the railway bridge at 

 Wroxham. When I disturbed them they flew a short distance to another 

 tree and perched again. On being put up a second time, however, they 

 flew round in circles wheeling and "drumming." — Henby Rogers 

 Harpenden). 



Great Grey Shrike in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire.— Hearing 

 that a strange bird with a grey back and black and white wings had been 

 captured at the village of Middleton-Cheney, Northamptonshire, I walked 

 over one afternoon, and after some seai'ch found it. It was, as I expected, 

 an example of the Great Grey Shrike,' and an adult bird, the back being of 

 a fine pearl-grey and the lower parts entirely unmarked. Its owner, a boy, 

 caught it in his bat-fowling clap-nets in a thorn-hedge about five weeks 

 before I saw it — i. e., about the end of December or beginning of January. 

 A few days previously I examined a second example, which was shot near 

 Croughton, Northamptonshire, on January 19th. This proved to be a male, 

 and is immature ; upper parts dull grey ; breast dusky, with numerous 

 crescentic markings. This bird appears to be intermediate between the 

 European Lanius excuhitor and L. major, the secondaries having only a 

 very little white at their bases, and the closed wing showing only one white 

 spot; this is also the case with the other specimen, but as it had been 

 placed by the village stuffer in the usual small box case I was unable to 

 examine it thoroughly. Besides these, a birdstuffer, who knows the bird 

 well, tells me he saw one by the canal near Bodicote about the 1 0th of 

 February last. — Oliver V. Aplin (Great Bourton, near Banbury). 



Curious nesting-place of the Great Tit. — In the beginning of June, 

 1883, we found a nest of the Great Tit quite a foot below the ground 

 amongst the roots of a huge elm tree in Nuneliam Park, Oxon. It 

 contained five fully fledged youug birds. — J. R. Earle (15, Norham Road, 

 Oxford). 



Wild Duck laying in a Rook's Nest. — Six Wild Ducks' eggs, perfectly 

 fresh, were taken, on March 26th, out of a Rooks' nest, between three and 

 four miles from here. The nest was surrounded by other Rooks' nests, one 

 being within a yard of it. The rookery was not far from the river Test, 

 the tree (a horse-chesuut, in which the nest chosen by the Wild Duck was) 

 being about twenty-five yards from the river, and the nest about thirty feet 

 from the ground. The bird was on the nest. The trees in which the 

 rookery was built were chiefly elms, there being only two or three horse- 



