NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 439 



Bough-legged Buzzard is said to be commoner here than the 

 Common Buzzard. The Merlin, too, breeds on the moors. 



The Pied Flycatcher breeds in Bolton Woods, near Barden 

 Tower, Wharfedale ; at Bewerley and at Harefield Wood, Pately 

 Bridge, Nidderdale ; and at Hackfall, near Masham on the Ure. 

 All these are deep wooded valleys. This bird rears two broods in 

 the course of the summer, and the first brood is brought off in 

 May (p. 140). 



The Baven, which has given its name to a great many places, 

 is now confined to the wildest and most elevated parts of the 

 West Biding. Mr. Lucas has only seen it twice — at Otley 

 Chevin, and on the summit of Pen-y-ghent. 



The Nuthatch is rare in the district, and was only seen 

 once, in the deep wooded gorge at Hackfall, at an elevation of 

 500 feet. 



The pages on the Spectre Hound, and the Dog and its folk- 

 lore (pp. 146 — 157) are entirely out of place in a chapter on 

 birds. 



A correspondent some time since wrote to ask if we could 

 inform him where House Martins used to build before there were 

 houses in Britain. The following note, by Mr. Lucas (p. 159), 

 supplies, in some measure, an answer to the enquiry : — 



" The House Martin seems to be one of those creatures whose fortunes, 

 to a certain extent, follow those of man. I fancy that the Celt on coming 

 to these islands must have found very few Martins, and those few only in 

 localities where there were limestone cliffs for them to build against. Nor 

 is it probable that the Romans found many more. The Martin could not 

 have become the very generally distributed and the common bird it now is 

 for centuries after the construction of stone houses with mortared walls 

 afforded it a site for its marvellous nest." 



One of these natural nesting-places of the Martin may be 

 seen at Kilnsey Crag, Wharfedale, a magnificent beetling cliff of 

 limestone that rises abruptly from the level of the river to a 

 height of about 165 feet. 



The Bock Dove breeds at Guy's Cliff and Brimham Bocks. 

 " On May 13th, 1869, one flew out of a hole bored for more than 

 a yard into the peat on the top of a crag amongst the Hare Head 

 rocks. A yard from the nest I picked up two eggs, one broken, 

 the other addled" (p. 172). Might not this have been a Stock 



