76 Field Notes. 



the number of occurrences of a similar kind which have recently 

 been brought to his notice, is quite surprising. — ^Walter 

 Greaves, Hebden Bridge. 



Curious behaviour of a pair of Song: Thrushes (Tardus 

 musicus). — Last Spring a pair of Song Thrushes built its 

 nest in a yew bush in the garden, almost opposite my sitting 

 room window, in such a position that as I sat smoking my 

 after-breakfast pipe I could watch practically their every 

 movement. After the nest was completed and the lining 

 dry, the hen (or what I took to be the hen) used to sit in the 

 nest each morning day after day for about half an hour to an 

 hour, but no egg was laid. Then the birds disappeared, and 

 I naturally concluded that the nest was forsaken. But after 

 an interval of perhaps a fortnight, they reappeared, and the 

 same proceeding went on again for days but there was never 

 any egg laid. That the birds were paired was clear, because 

 often whilst the hen was on the nest, her mate was with her 

 sitting on a branch within a few inches of the nest. Quite 

 five or six weeks I think must have elapsed between the making 

 of the nest and the final disappearance of the birds, which did 

 not build again in the garden, nor anywhere else so far as I 

 could ascertain. — Geo. T. Porritt, Elm Lea, Dalton, Hudders- 

 field, January 5th, 1918. 



Scarcity of the Bulfinch in Upper Airedale. — The 

 Bulfinch is said to be such a common and generally distributed 

 bird, that it may cause surprise to some ornithologists, to be in- 

 formed that, except during the autumn and to a lesser degree in 

 winter, this species is hardly ever seen in Upper Airedale. In 

 the autumn here I have not unfrequentl)^ seen it feeding upon 

 elderberries, of which it is very fond, but I have never yet 

 found its nest, although a friend of mine used to tell me he had 

 found the nest about St. Ives, which is about a mile and a half 

 away. It is much more common in the breeding season in 

 some parts of the adjoining valley, that is in Wharfedale, and 

 it is said to have been much more common in Airedale in former 

 years, but this cannot include the last half a century. Tunstall, 

 in 1786, states that this species was plentiful in the north of 

 Yorkshire, and AUis, in 1844, wrote that it was common in 

 some parts, but becoming scarcer in others. On the 2nd inst., 

 whilst taking a walk on the western boundary of Bingley 

 Wood, I was agreeably surprised to see two Bulfinches in a 

 spruce tree, and on my approach they flew into a birch, and 

 began at once to eat the buds. I was more surprised still to 

 see one feeding upon the seeds of dock in my poultry run on 

 the 12th inst. When first seen it was some distance away and 

 I could see its white rump (this being the only feature that 

 attracted my attention) flitting from plant to plant. I took 

 it to be a Mealy Redpoll, which I have occasionally seen feeding 



Naturalist, 



