NOTES AND QUERIES. 223 



presented it to the Museum in this town, where it now is. Mr. Hutton, 

 who has kindly supplied me with information, says that when shot it was 

 feeding on the branches of a spruce fir, and that it proved to be a female, 

 although from the plumage one would have supposed it a male. The 

 following is a brief description : — Crown, cheeks, nape, whole of back and 

 upper tail coverts had the feathers blackish grey, all being broadly edged 

 with red, which showed a little mostly on the back, but not on the head or 

 neck. The red was of a peculiar tint (certainly not " vermilion red," as 

 described by Yarrell, and as on some other specimens with which I have 

 compared it), which may, perhaps, be best described as red strongly tinged 

 with crimson-lake. Tail-feathers blackish brown, faintly edged with red. 

 Wing-coverts as tail, each feather tipped with white strongly tinged with 

 red, thus forming two bars. Quill-feathers as tail. Outer edge of 

 primaries margined with red. Breast, throat, and sides much the same 

 as back, but with one or two yellowish feathers intermixed low down. 

 Belly and under tail-coverts greyish, edges lighter. — Robert Millkr 

 Christy (Saffron Walden). 



Nesting of the Marsh and Reed Warblers. — As doubts have been 

 expressed with regard to the breeding of the former of these birds in this 

 country, it may interest some of your readers to know that iu the middle of 

 July, 1880, I found a nest containing four eggs, somewhat incubated. 

 The nest was attached to stems of Scrofularia aquatlca and the common 

 nettle, and was situated a few feet from the bank of a brook near Bath, 

 Somersetshire. As one or two notices of the nest of this bird, taken near 

 Taunton, have been recorded in 'The Zoologist' (]882, pp. 265, 306), I 

 infer that it breeds annually in Somerset. The eggs are not to be mistaken 

 for those of the Reed Warbler. I have compared them with a series of more 

 than forty of the latter, and find they more resemble in colouring those of 

 the Great Reed Warbler. 1 believe it is not generally known that the 

 Reed Warbler is exceedingly plentiful aloug the course of the Bristol Avon, 

 especially near Bath. In the mouths of June and July, 1881, I found 24 

 nests, containing altogether 46 eggs, not including young ones. They 

 were all built on osiers except two, one of which was in a currant bush, the 

 other in a sallow tree. In one osier bed were eight nests. I have also 

 found the bird to be common in the summer of 1882 in some marshes 

 about eight miles from Cardiff, South Wales. There are numbers 

 frequenting some large reed beds. — C. Young (Llaudaff). 



Bitterns Migrating in a Flock. — On Dec. 15th last, when steaming 

 from Alexandria to Cairo about sunset, a flock of forty or fifty large birds 

 appeared slowly flapping towards us. When a long way off I at first 

 mistook them for Lapwings, but as they passed close over us I saw they 

 were Bitterns, the common Botaurus stellaris. I never before saw so many 



