NOTES AND QUERIES. 237 



Osprey in Renfrewshire. — On May 19th last I found an Osprey 

 {Pandion lialiactus) lying dead on a grass-ledge in a glen in the 

 north-west corner of Renfrewshire. It was a male bird in fine 

 plumage, but had been dead some time, and the head was destroyed. 

 The skin has been preserved as far as possible. The dimensions are — 

 Length 22^ in. ; wing-spread 5 ft. 5 in. ; closed wing 20 in. ; beak 

 1| in.; base of beak to base of tail 13^ in.; tail 9^ in.; tarsus 2| in. — 

 Thomas Malloch (Mount Pleasant, Johnstone, Eenfrewshire). 



The Honey-Buzzard. — I am grateful to Mr. Jourdain for his com- 

 ments on this subject [ante, p. 149), and regret that so well-informed 

 an authority cannot add any definite records of eggs or young birds 

 to my scanty list. To some of the records of "breeding" which he 

 mentions, I referred in my former note, and others did not furnish 

 the particulars I required, or were unsatisfactory. But I am now 

 able to add Durham to my list. Mr. Isaac Clark has kindly given 

 me particulars of a nest built in some beech-woods on the banks of 

 the Eiver Derwent, which contained two young birds early in August, 

 1899. I have to thank Mr. Noble for telling me of this nest in the 

 first instance. — 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Decrease of Corn-Crake, Nuthatch, and Wryneck. — The scarcity 

 of the Nuthatch noticed here {mite, p. 114) extended as far north as 

 the southern part of Warwickshire, where the bird used to be very 

 common and has been scarce of late years. But I hear that the tide 

 seems to have turned, and a few birds have been noticed again lately. 

 Here, too, it may have turned. There are one if not two pairs about 

 the village this summer. A pair still (May) comes for nuts, but 

 have scorned a Berlepsch nesting-box I put up just over the nut- 

 board, and Blue Tits took it. The Nuthatch has many admirers 

 outside the ranks of professed ornithologists, and it is easy to get 

 some idea of its status. All round here the tale has been the same 

 for some years. As to north-west Oxon and Oxford, cf. Mr. Fowler's 

 note, "Where are our Nuthatches?" ('Zoologist,' 1909, p. 155). 

 With regard to the increase of this bird with Mr. Noble, may it not 

 be possible that this is partly, at all events, owing to the ample 

 provision of nesting-boxes '? Birds like the Nuthatch (and the Wry- 

 neck, too) must have suffered a good deal, not only from usurpation 

 of nesting-holes by the increased Starlings but also by the destruction 

 and removal of old " useless " trees, often full of old Woodpeckers' 

 and other holes. The old trees have been disappearing steadily and 

 surely ; and as the birds named cannot make holes for themselves, 

 and will not put up with tin-pots and kettles as readily as Tits do, 



