NOTES AND QUERIES. 79) 
-the bird would have made a longer stay. It probably succumbed to the cold, 
or perished from inability to procure proper food.—J. KE. Harrine. 
Notes from Merionethshire.— Last summer I took a few notes on the 
birds which I saw in a part of North Wales which is not much frequented, 
and I hope they may prove of some interest to your readers. The house 
at which I stayed is about two miles south of Cader Idris, and in front of 
it, about two hundred yards away, is a little stream which divides the 
counties of Merioneth and Montgomery. There are a few Buzzards in the 
district, and on May 138th I took an addled egg from a nest which contained 
oue young bird. It was in the first fork of an old oak, about six feet from 
the ground, and in it were a snake, a lizard, a mouse, a young blackbird, 
“and half a rabbit. One of our quarrymen told me that he had found 
another nest with young in it on a rock, but I cannot vouch for the 
accuracy of this. On the same day I got Ring Ouzel’s eggs very hard-set, 
and on May 14th 1 found a nest of this bird with young birds in it. On 
May 31st the quarryman, whom 1 have mentioned, brought me a young 
Ring Ouzel from a hill at the back of our house. It could fly well enough 
to give him a good chase. It seems therefore that these birds must breed 
here considerably earlier than they do further north, since it is mentioned, 
in the last edition of Yarrell’s * British Birds,’ that Mr. Heysham saw young 
birds near Carlisle fully fledged on June 15th. ‘The old birds kept flying 
close to the man till he had got almost to the bottom of the hill. I asked 
him to take the young bird back. He let it goa little way up the hill, 
and at its first ery the old ones flew to it in a moment. Grey Wagtails are 
common here. ‘Two of their nests which I found were lined with white 
hairs only, and in all of them the lining was composed of lighter-coloured 
hairs than the rest of the nest. I often went to look at one of these birds 
sitting on her nest in a ledge of rock almost under a waterfall. There are 
several pairs of Dippers, and I think there would be many more if they did 
not build so much under bridges, where the boys easily find the nests and 
take the eggs for the sole purpose of breaking them. I could not find the 
eggs of the Common Sandpiper, though I saw several pairs of the birds, 
and caught four little ones among some rushes. On June Ist I saw and 
heard a Garden Warbler (Sylvia hortensis), and on June 3rd one began to 
sing in our garden, and continued to do so every day till I left. His 
favourite place was near the top of a Holm-path. I could not find the 
nest, though I was anxious to do so, as the bird is not common in Wales. 
There were several Blackcaps about us, and, on finding a nest in our 
garden, we hoped it was the Garden Warbler; but while I was taking an 
egg the parent bird stood on the side of the nest, and showed the 
unmistakable brown head of the hen Blackcap. Jedstarts are very 
common, and we found many nests, one of them in a hole in a bank. The 
Pied Flycatcher (Muscicapa atricapilla) is by no means rare. We found 
