NOTES AND QUERIES. 299 
that it occurs in moorland regions, such as Skye; but there one only finds 
it in juxtaposition to a cultivated or sylvan area. The following notes on 
the Lesser Redpoll may be useful to county faunists :—Middlesea.—One 
or two pairs usually nest in Highgate Cemetery, where my friend Mr. Vine 
took a clutch of eggs in 1884. Surrey.—A young bird was caught near 
Guildford on August 1st, 1885, and submitted to me for examination. 
Devon.—In July, 1879, Mr. Sladen and I observed an old bird feeding a 
nestling, on the branch of an ash, near Lynton. The fact of the Lesser 
Redpoll breeding irregularly in the southern counties is familiar to 
most of us, but records are scanty, and might well be increased by the 
readers of ‘The Zoologist.—H. A. Macrnerson (3, Kensington Gardens 
Square, W.). 
The Speed of Swallows.—An experiment to test the speed of the 
Swallow’s flight has just been made at Pavia. ‘Two hen birds were taken 
from their broods, carried to Milan, and there released at a given hour 
Both made their way back to their nests in thirteen minutes, which gave 
their rate of speed at 873 miles an hour. 
Wild Duck and Pheasant laying in same Nest.—A curious instance 
of two birds of very dissimilar habits laying in the same nest has just 
occurred here, 7. e., the Wild Duck (Anas boscas) and the Pheasant. About 
the middle of May I was told of a Wild Duck’s nest containing thirteen 
eggs. On going to look at it some days afterwards I found the nest empty, 
the young ducks being hatched and gone. The egg-shells, however, were 
lying round the nest, and among these were two Pheasant’s eggs, each 
containing a fully-developed chick, which would probably have come out in 
the course of another day. As the period of incubation of the Wild Duck 
is much longer than that of the Pheasant, these eggs must have been 
deposited in the duck’s nest some time after she had begun to sit.—G. H. 
Caton Hates (Aber-ia, Penrhyn-Dendraeth, Merioneth). 
[What is the precise period of incubation in each case? We are under 
the impression that it is about twenty-eight days in the Duck, and about 
twenty-one days in the Pheasant. It would be interesting to have a list 
of species showing the period of incubation, when it varies to any 
remarkable extent.—Eb. ] 
Habits of the Coot.—Apropos of the note on this subject (p. 247), I 
may remark that on the evening of May 30th a Coot, which had her bulky 
nest in an exposed position in a thin tuft of bullrushes some twenty yards 
from the bank of the Reservoir, was cruising about in the vicinity of her 
home, when a Wild Duck swam up into what I suppose the Coot considered 
her private water, for she resented the intrusion, and, with lowered head 
and erected feathers, bore down upon the trespasser. The latter retreated, 
but, not contented with this, Fulica, putting on all sail, gave chase, and, 
