NOTES AND QUERIES. BHS 



he placed a Nightingale's egg there " tinted with chalk-powder," and with- 

 drew the Sparrow's. This process he repeated till three of the eggs were 

 disposed of. This nest unfortunately was soon afterwards robbed. " The 

 same evening," writes the Earl, " I gave the remaining pair of eggs to John 

 Burton, gardener to Mrs. Scott, of Harden, at Mertoun, to place in a nest 

 suitable to the purpose, which he had discovered in a place where he could 

 watch, and protect it from plunder, being on the roof of the hot-house 

 there, adjoining his own house. This disposition of the remaining eggs was 

 intended not only to give a better chance of success in the experiment, 

 but to pay a compliment to my friend Lady Diana Scott, who had gone to 

 the bird men in London, in the year 1787, to bespeak nestlings for me, 

 when I thought of rearing them with hen Lark nurses, from which plan 

 1 desisted." On the 16th June the Earl's agent wrote to him from Kelso, 

 in great excitement, that Burton had been successful; that two Nightingales 

 had actually been hatched there on the lOth inst. ; that the practicability of 

 the thing had been ascertained. Burton was " fixed in his opinion as to 

 the birds being Nightingales, and that they left the nest at the proper 

 time," and were different from the Chaffinch. Fame and immortality were 

 now spoken of, and compliments heaped upon Lord Buchan, to whom was 

 accorded the merit of having been the first who " either thought of, or had 

 the spirit to try the experiment; " and it was prophesied — " Your fame in 

 Scotland will oft be celebrated in the Nightingale's song." A notice was 

 prepared for the local paper that " A pair of Nightingale's eggs were 

 deposit in a Straw-finch's nest on the 24th May, and actually hatched on 

 the 10th inst." But when the first burst of excitement had subsided 

 doubts arose. It was seen that from the date when the eggs were " deposit " 

 to the 10th June was a very short time for incubation. Therefore a 

 messenger was sent to Mertoun to question John Burton more particularly. 

 It was found that he was " not clear in the matter." This was the report. 

 " Originally there had been five eggs in the nest, and he only withdrew 

 two, substituting the two Nightingale ones, and of these five only two were 

 hatched, the other three were broken by the bird. So that Burton could 

 not say whether the two were the produce of the Nightingale eggs or not. 

 Further questioned. Burton could not say the birds flew or had been taken 

 by any beast. The nest was undisturbed. Nor could he say much as to 

 the colour of the birds." Therefore it was thought only prudent to defer 

 for the present the newspaper notice lest they should be laughed at for 

 announcing, as it is somewhat quaintly phrased, " the accouchment of two 

 Chaffinches in place of Nightingales." Thus ends the record of an experi- 

 ment which did no justice to the careful preparation that preceded it. 



The Tufted Duck on the Solway. — My friend Mr. R. Service is a 

 little at a loss to reconcile the statements of Mr. Armistead and myself as 

 to the abundance or scarcity of the Tufted Duck on the Solway. Allow 



