NOTES AND QUERIES. od'-i 



always known the Peregrine to lay in a little hollow scraped by her in the 

 earth on her breeding-shelf in the cliffs, which earth sometimes is mixed 

 with a quantity of the bones left by her when rearing former broods. 

 I have always found the Kestrel, when breeding in cliffs, act in a similar 

 manner. I saw the eggs of a Kestrel in a deserted nest of a Hooded Crow 

 in the sea-cliffs this year ; but otherwise have always found them on earth 

 upon a ledge, or in a recess of the cliffs, or in the deserted nest of a Magpie 

 or Crow when in a tree, without any addition having been made by the 

 Kestrel. That either species should bring materials to construct a nest, 

 or to add to a deserted nest, is so contrary to my experience that the oft- 

 repeated statements to that effect seem to require thorough investigation. 

 In forest regions, like Pomerania, the Peregrine is stated to breed in trees ; 

 but has anyone known this bird to build, or does she merely lay her eggs 

 in the deserted nest of some other bird? Mr. Christy also enumerates 

 "wool and dry grass" among the building-materials of the Heron. Who 

 has seen this? Has it simply been copied from the earlier editions of 

 " Yarrell " ? Did Mr. Yarrell ever climb to a Heron's nest ? I have found 

 nothing but sticks, lined with twigs, and sometimes a few coarse stems, 

 such as bracken? — R. J. Ussher (Cappagh, Co. Waterford). 



[The Editor once climbed to the nest of a Heron in Waustead Park, 

 Essex. It was situated on the top of an elm, and was composed of large 

 twigs, principally elm and willow, and lined with smaller twigs, fibre, and 

 dry grass.] 



Stock Dove laying three Eggs. — The normal number of eggs laid at 

 one time by Pigeons is well known to be two, and instances in which more 

 than two are laid in a nest by the same bird are probably rare. On the 

 21st April last, I found a nest, in an ivy-covered thorn, containing three fresh 

 eggs, all apparently laid by the same bird, as only one pair were seen in the 

 vicinity, and the hen bird was on the nest. — E. A. Butler, Lieut.-Col. 



Golden Oriole at Harrow. — A Golden Oriole was, I am sorry to say, 

 shot in the garden of the Park, Harrow, in May last. It is now in the 

 Harrow School Museum. This year a Kestrel's nest was obtained not far 

 from Harrow ; this is a rather uncommon nest to find in that locality. — 

 G. Barrett-Hamilton (Kilmanock, New Ross, Co. Wexford). 



Cirl Bunting in Hampshire. — On the 20th June last I took a Cirl 

 Bunting's nest, containing four eggs, in a hedge not a hundred yards from 

 Queenwood College. They are very typical specimens of the eggs of this 

 species. On the previous day I had obtained four more eggs of the Cirl at 

 a cottage about a mile off. Three others, in a collection of one of the 

 pupils here, were bought from some country boy near here. Until last year, 

 when my son took a nest with three eggs, I had not come across the Cirl 

 Bunting in this neighbourhood. It is evidently not common, or with the 



ZOOLOGIST. — OCTOBER, 1888. 2 H 



