LaSgerab merc zniwer a BIRD-NOTES. 
F, B. WHITLOCK, 
Beeston, Notts. 
WanT of time has prevented me from thanking Mr. G. Bolam for 
the copy of the note relating to the interbreeding of the Kestrel 
and Merlin in 1886, as recorded in the Proceedings of the Berwick- 
shire Naturalists’ Club. A few further words will, I think, finally 
clear the matter up. The original note I see refers the locality 
where the circumstance took place to ‘Barra Crags,’ a spot about 
a mile from the nest I visited. Now, in the previous year, 1885, 
a pair of Merlins (Falco esalon) bred at Barra Crags, and the young 
birds and parents were all captured as detailed in Mr. Thompson’s 
note. Fortunately these birds were preserved, and I have seen them 
in a case at a gamekeeper’s house in Harbottle. The female shows 
hardly. a trace of the slate colour exhibited by an older bird, and 
might be mistaken for a Kestrel by an inexperienced observer. 
Mr. Thompson at the time I knew him was suffering from a weakness 
which no doubt clouded his memory, and he appears to have mixed 
up the circumstances relating to this pair of Merlins with those 
relating to the pair which bred at Linnshiels Loch, of which 
I recently gave the history in the ‘ Naturalist.’ His note, too, men- 
tioning the Dotterel (Eudromias morinellus), no doubt refers to the 
Ringed Plover (4¢gialitis hiaticula). Before I left Harbottle in 
1886, I furnished him with a list of birds I had observed during my 
visit. Amongst others I mentioned the Ringed Plover or minged 
Dotterel, but he appears to have added the word ‘common’ on his 
Own responsibility, as I only met with two pairs. 
I was very pleased to see a very nice increase in the number of 
breeding birds of this species on my recent visit. I think there 
must be quite twelve pairs now. I noticed four nests containing 
eggs. Amongst other birds, I also noticed rather more Redshanks 
(otanus calidris) in the neighbourhood than in 1886. I picked one 
up dead, which a hawk had struck. The skin of the neck was badly 
torn. A keeper remarked to me that, let a new pair of birds, 
moderately conspicuous in plumage or habit, take up their residence 
in a neighbourhood where they were previously unknown, one of 
them was sure to be killed by a hawk. I also picked up a domestic 
pigeon, wounded in the neck in a similar manner. 
Readers of the ‘Naturalist’ will remember an article on ‘The 
Birds of Upper Coquetdale,’ which appeared, I think, in 1885, from 
the aaa, of Mr. John Cordeaux. In some subsequent articles in the 
March 380. 
