OCCASIONAL NOTES. 2-\o 



five eggs of the Little Grebe or Dabehick on Strensall Common ; the 

 eggs were, as usual with this bird, completely covered up. Since this note 

 was written I have found three more nests of the Teal. That many nests 

 of this bird should be found in the same locality is an unusual occurrence. 

 I may add that since the breaking up and enclosing of Eiccall Common, 

 several pairs of Black-headed Gulls, Larus ridibundus, now breed on 

 Strensall Common.— W. Hewett (Clarence Street, York). 



Curious capture of a Great Black-backed Gull.— Thomas Sorrell, 

 naturalist, of Old Humphrey's Avenue, Hastings, informs me that he had 

 a Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus, brought to him at the end of 

 February, which had been obtained in a very singular manner. The bird 

 dived down into the hold of a fishing-smack, at sea, which was half full of 

 Whiting. The men on the smack surrounded the hold, snatched at and 

 secured the bird as it came up. They killed it and brought it to Sorrell, 

 who tells me that it was an old male in fine plumage, the stomach full of 

 half-digested Whiting. It hardly seems as if hunger could have made it 

 endanger its life in such a strange manner.— Thomas Parkin (Haltou, near 

 Hastings). 



Nesting of the Long-tailed Titmouse. — Mr. C. B. Wharton (p. 187) 

 asks other observers at what height from the ground the nest of the English 

 Long-tailed Tit is usually placed. Although only three nests have come 

 under my notice it may be as well to mention their position. The first 

 was built at a height of about twenty feet from the ground, and although 

 hundreds of other sites could have been chosen, it was placed in the fork 

 of a tree, quite close to another tree in which was suspended a farm-yard 

 bell, rung four times daily. The second nest was at the top of a very high 

 Scotch far, on an outer branch. My attention was attracted by observing 

 the two birds flying about the nest. These two were at Tower Hill, 

 Co. Limerick. The third I saw a few days ago, in an apple-tree, in the 

 garden ol my friend Mr. R. J. Ussher, of Cappagh, Co. Waterford. This 

 nest, he told me, was eleven feet from the ground. I may mention that 

 I saw on the 12th of this month (May) a family party of old and young 

 Long-Tailed Tits flitting restlessly about in the Curraghmore Woods. — 

 William W. Flemyng (Portlaw, Co. Waterford). 



Nesting of the Lung-tailed Titmouse.— Referring to Mr. Wharton's 

 enquiries on the above subject (p. 187), I write to say that a nest of this 

 species is just being completed (May 6th) in an apple tree in my garden. 

 It is placed eleven feet from the ground, at a point where a branch had 

 been cut short some years since, among the offshoots that have sprung 

 from the cut limb, and so artfully adapted to its surroundings, with the 

 usual covering of silvery lichens, as to resemble a knob or excrescence of 



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