NOTES AND QUERIES. 229 
year. On the following day the Fishmongers’ Company made the scheme 
a grant of £2000. The full capital has yet, however, to be raised, the 
Council of the Association having only secured one-half the amount. 
MAMMALIA. 
Squirrels destroying the Eggs of Picus major.—As there are still 
some tender-hearted people who hesitate to believe in the egg-stealing 
propensity of the graceful and bright-eyed Squirrel, I think the following 
account of the destruction of a nest of Pieus major may help to enlighten 
them :—In May of last year (1884) I found a nest of this bird in Hamp- 
shire in a dead Scotch fir, about thirty feet from the ground, containing a 
single fresh egg. This was lying on the usual flooring of chips, about 
nine inches below the entrance-hole, and in order to examine the nest 
without causing the birds to desert it I carefully cut a piece of the wood 
out of the side of the tree and replaced it, leaving the entrance untouched. 
A week afterwards I paid another visit to the tree, and to my surprise found 
the nest, which had been excavated to a depth of three or four inches more, 
empty. Having safely fastened my “ window” again, I climbed up another 
dead tree about thirty yards distant, thinking perhaps the birds had taken 
fright at my first examination and were nesting elsewhere. My astonish- 
ment was great at finding, near the top of this other tree, wedged into a 
crack in the wood, an egg of Picus major, perfectly sound, except for a small 
tooth-mark in the side. I removed this egg, which was quite twenty feet 
above the ground, and descended to search for the shells of any other eggs 
there may have been, finding the remains of three lying close to the foot of 
the tree. Feeling sure as to the robbers, and thinking from the recent 
deepening of the nest that the birds might use it again, I got some tar and 
laid on a good coat of it round the trunk of the nest-tree. My plan 
succeeded admirably, for a week later I found there were four eggs in the 
nest, and the hen bird was sitting close on them. I have known Squirrels 
to remove the eggs from the nest of the Long-eared Owl and other species 
nesting in the pine-woods, but this is the first instance which has come to 
my knowledge of their interfering with those of a Woodpecker, and it is a 
marvellous thing how they could have got the eggs out of such a nest 
through a small hole without, apparently, breaking them. There is no 
doubt that they were the delinquents on this occasion, and I have registered 
a solemn vow to spare them no longer from any sentimental qualms of 
conscience. Perhaps the simple remedy adopted (the boughs of adjoining 
trees not affording communication with the nest-tree) may prove of service 
to lovers of bird-life.—S. G. Rerp, Capt. R.E. 
Albino Field Vole. — I have lately received a pure albino Field Vole, 
Arvicola agrestis, which was killed in March last, near Horsham, This is 
