Notes.



351



overlook it with three glances ; the first showing me the little ringed

teal quietly slipping into the water, the second a hollow in a

horizontal branch about a foot from the ground, the third a snug

nest of down upon dry chips of wood within the hollow, in which

reposed nine eggs! They much resembled bantam’s eggs, but had

a slight pinkish tint from the yolks within the shells ; their size

much the same too. To leave them would have been useless, for

no ducklings survive brought out amongst a crowd of full grown

ducks who eat up every available particle of natural food, and

therefore I transferred them to a basket, carrying them off to a

broody silky. *


One day in August a white-necked crane was missing, one

out of three which hadn’t been pinioned, and nowhere could that

rare and stately bird be seen. Post cards were fired around to

neighbours, the police were consulted and an advertisement put in

the local paper, but none of these things took effect, for on the

second day the crane was found a mile and a half away in a field of

barley, chased over two other fields and captured by a boy of 17 in

His Majesty’s noble army, who was enjoying three days leave

at home. In Herefordshire, herons are often called cranes, and one

neighbour I wrote to answered by return saying that probably my

bird would be found on a marshy spot not far off, “ as there

are usually some cranes there.”


Fancy going out to bag a few Manchurians, and so on !



NOTES


ARRIVAL OF RARE INDIAN BIRDS.


Mr. E. W. Harper landed last month in England with a

small collection of choice birds from India, about which he has

kindly promised to write some account.


Amongst them w T as a small babbler, the size of a wren, brown

upper parts and ochreous under parts. This is probably the broad¬

tailed Reed-bird; Schoemcola platyura. Mr. Harper suggests the

rufous-bellied babbler, Dumetia hyperythra. A small Zosterops-



[Only one egg hatched, and the duckling is flourishing. The rest were clear.]



