136 On Rambles with a Camera among our South-Country Birds.


last year I put four Lapwing eggs under a small Bantam. All of

them were successfully hatched. The young birds were placed

in a coop, with a large wire run, in a field where some hundreds of

young Pheasants were being reared, receiving the same food

with the addition of a liberal supply of earth- and meal-worms;

but they all four gradually weakened, and died within a few days.

This species also provided me with another example of an

abnormal clutch—five eggs in one nest. It is well known that

members of the order Limicolce, with but few exceptions, lay

four eggs. The nest in question was unusually long, and

the five eggs it contained were of a very uniform type. Of

course, there is always the chance that where birds breed in

colonies, or where nesting sites are exceptionally inviting, one

may find birds of both the same and distinct species laying

together. A nest—if one may so describe a slight depression in

shingle—in a colony of Lesser Terns ( Sterna mimitd), which I

visited, contained five eggs of two such totally distinct types

that the merest tyro could have separated them into their

respective clutches. I know, too, of a case where a Common

Snipe ( Gallinago ccelestis ) and a Redshank {Totanus calidris)

selected the same nesting site, and actually deposited each their

full complement of eggs. I very much doubt if either of these

birds could have successfully covered the eight eggs, notwith¬

standing their known skill in arranging them. Again, in places

where old and hollow timber abounds, one may constantly find

the Jackdaw ( Corvus moned 7 da) and Stock-Dove ( Columba cenas~) r

and Jackdaw and Starling (Sturmis vulgaris) selecting the same

quarters ; and I have even found a family of Bats sleeping the

day away just above a brooding Daw.


The illustration (Fig. 1) of the nest and five eggs of the

Blackcap ( Sylvia atricapilla) is in a very typical situation,

amongst the bramble undergrowth of a Pheasant covert, within

a stone’s throw of the keeper’s cottage. When I first discovered

this nest the male bird was sitting on four eggs, and, as they

appeared quite fresh, I decided to wait a day or two before taking

a photograph. O11 visiting the nest again two days later, I found

the female bird sitting on five eggs. That the male bird should

start sitting before all the eggs were laid is surely curious?



