152 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



almost every large meadow," even within the borough boundaries. 

 This bird is always so common here that when visiting some other 

 parts of England in the summer months I have been surprised 

 to notice the absence of its voice. Thus, when on a visit to the 

 Norfolk Broad district, where I spent a week in May, 1901, thinking 

 of and looking for nothing but birds, I neither saw nor heard it. On 

 our north-east coast, where the hay and corn harvests are much 

 later than elsewhere in England, the bird's nest and eggs are less 

 likely to be destroyed by the reaping-machine, and this may account 

 for its continued abundance. — W. Gyngell (Scarborough). 



The observations in your recent issues prompt me to say that 

 during the last seven years (1904 and onwards), in the course of 

 many outings in Middlesex, Herts, and Bucks, I have only twice 

 heard this bird, viz. near Great Missenden on June 5th, 1910. This 

 experience is so greatly at variance with local ornithological writings 

 that I cannot suppose it to indicate the actual prevalence of the 

 species, but it may serve as a comment on the notes of your corre- 

 spondents. Of earlier years in the above-named districts I can say 

 nothing, but in the West of Scotland there was no more familiar 

 sound in the fields, all over, than the calls of the Corn-Crake. — Hugh 

 Boyd Watt (3, Willow Mansions, West Hampstead). 



I notice that in the list of birds in the new edition of Mr. W. M. 

 Webb's ' Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary ' (Selborne Society, 1911), the 

 Corn-Crake does not occur. The locality has now been carefully and 

 continuously watched since 1905. Wryneck and Nuthatch : In the 

 Sanctuary the Wryneck nested in 1910 (unsuccessfully), and the 

 Nuthatch reared young in 1909 and 1910. — H. B. W. 



Notes from South-Western Hants. — The damp and uncertain 

 weather of last summer, followed by a no less damp and mild winter, 

 seem to have upset the usual routine of bird-life, especially with the 

 migrants visiting this particular locality. The two species of Martin, 

 as well as the Swallow, were neither of them so common as formerly, 

 although Swifts and Nightjars were in their usual numbers. The 

 Nightingale was much more frequent than in the spring of 1909, but 

 of the other warblers fewer were seen or heard, and in one or two 

 localities where the Eed-backed Shrike annually nested none were 

 seen. In the winter, too, there appeared to be a comparative scarcity 

 of both Fieldfares and Redwings ; I heard of only one Bittern, and the 

 northern breeding ducks were many of them altogether absent, or but 

 scantily represented. The river being in flood most of the winter 

 the usual "shoots" from "gazes" were comparatively few, but when 



