OCCASIONAL NOTES. 265 



this piece of stack was going to be cut I took this nest, but she has since 

 built another like the first one: I trust she may be rewarded for her clever- 

 ness by rearing her brood. I have this year found twelve nests within one 

 hundred yards of the house. — J. Whitaker (Raiuworth Lodge, near 

 Mansfield). 



Call of the Long-eared Owl. — For several years past the Long- 

 eared Owl has bred in a plantation of tall Scotch and spruce firs, a few 

 hundred yards above my house, generally I believe in old Magpies' nests. 

 In 1880 I first noted the peculiar warning note I am about to describe. On 

 the 16th May last, while standing among these firs with the Eev. W. W. 

 Flemyng, about nine p.m., and while the young were uttering from the 

 nest their plaintive call for food, the parent Owl, seeing us, alighted on a 

 neighbouring tree and made a distinct quacking sound, repeated three or 

 four times in close succession, and then, after an interval of silence, simi- 

 larly repeated. It took up more than one position, observing us all the 

 time. On hearing this sound (which decidedly resembles the word 

 " quack "), the young became quite silent and remained so as long as it was 

 repeated. It resembles not so much the loug quack of a duck as the sound 

 produced by a toy which is squeezed to make it squeak or quack, with 

 something of the conventional tone of a "Punch and Judy" performance. 

 On the evening of June 6th, the young, having left their nest, were 

 uttering their call from other trees, when the parent flitted past, hushing 

 them at once by this note, and perched on tree after tree in full view, 

 even closer than twenty yards from me, trying to draw me away from the 

 young, and at the same time warning them of danger. I could observe 

 her distinctly while uttering the " quack." Her back was arched, neck 

 stretched forward, mouth opened wide, and wings compressed as the sound 

 was uttered. I have never heard any Owl hoot, the Tawny Owl being 

 unknown here. — Richard J. Ussher (Cappagh, Co. Waterford). 



Maesh Warbler's Nest neae Taunton. — The nest of the Marsh 

 Warbler has been again obtained in the neighbourhood of Taunton the 

 beginning of June, and, like former ones, was attached to the stalks of 

 meadow-sweet (Spircea Ulmaria). The eggs are very handsome ones, and 

 have been placed in the collection of Mr. J. Marshall, of Belmont, 

 Taunton. — Muerat A. Mathew. [See Mr. Cecil Smith's remarks on the 

 breeding of the Marsh Warbler in Somersetshire, ' Zoologist,' 1875, 

 p. 4713.— Ed.] 



Eggs of the Cuckoo in Buntings' Nests. — On May 1 6th I found 

 near here a Cuckoo's egg in the nest of Emberiza cirlus; on the 24th, 

 on this place, one in a nest of E. citrinella; and on the 25th, also 

 on this place, one in another nest of E. cirlus. In each nest were three 

 Bunting's eggs. In no instance did the Cuckoo's egg at all resemble a 



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