VOL. VII.] NOTES. 265 



in the neighbourhood of Bolton, Lancashire. It was a loose 

 and rather bulky structure, containing four eggs of the 

 Sparrow and one of the Cuckoo {Cuculus c. canorus). On 

 May 16th, 1909, he visited the same locality, but the trees 

 in which the Sparrows were breeding yielded nothing of 

 interest. Noticing a nest in a hole in the roof of an adjoining 

 building he examined it, and found another Cuckoo's egg, 

 together with four eggs of the Sparrow, which are now in 

 my collection. The nest Avas profusely lined with white 

 Leghorn feathers and quite open in front, so that the Cuckoo 

 would have no difficulty in depositing the egg. 



On another occasion Mr. Peaples found a nest of a Wheatear 

 {(Enanthe os. oenanihe) in a httle-used lane, with three white 

 eggs. On returning three days later, he was surprised to find 

 that two of the Wheatear's eggs had disappeared and that 

 a Cuckoo's egg had been deposited in the nest. 



On another occasion he actually saw a Cuckoo deposit its 

 egg by means of its bill in the nest of a Twite {Carduelis f. 

 flavirostris), and hurriedly rushing forward was in time to 

 secure a full set of Twite's eggs, together with the Cuckoo's. 

 Both the latter sets are now in the Bolton Museum. 



H. Massey. 



TENGMALM'S OWL IN KENT. 



On January 2nd, 1914, a pair of Tengmalm's Owls {^golius 

 t. tengmalmi) were obtained at Sandhurst, Kent, and were 

 shown to me ia the flesh on January 3rd. As can easily 

 be understood, they had been taken for examples of the 

 Little Owl. H. W. Eord-Lestdsay. 



WINTER-NESTING OF THE BARN-OWL. 



The fact that the Barn-Owl [Tyto a. alba) has young 

 occasionally during the winter months has been recorded 

 already. Thus, Waterton says {Essays on Nat. Hist., p. 12, 

 1838) that, in December, 1823, he found a nest containing 

 j^oung. Nevertheless, the occurrence seems to me suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to be worth noting whenever observed. 



A pair of these birds nests regularly in a hole in one of 

 a row of old elms beside the drive leadmg up to my house. 

 This hole has held a nest every year, I am told, as far back 

 as anyone can remember. Last year (1912) there were 

 young in the nest, and their loud " snoring " might be heard 

 every evening from June or July up to, at any rate, late 

 September, and, I think, till October. 



