420 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



1888, Mr. W. Ogilvie Grant writing that the British Natural 

 History Museum had received, " an interesting acquisition in the 

 shape of an undoubted nest with two eggs of the Black Eedstart, 

 Ruticilla tithys, taken in Essex. This is the first authentic 

 instance, I beheve, which has been recorded of this bird breeding 

 in England." A description of the nest, which was built in a hole 

 of an ivy-covered tree and originally contained four white eggs, 

 follows. The sitting bird is described by the lady who presented 

 the nest as " a dark-coloured bird with a red tail" and this is 

 apparently the sole justification for describing the occurrence as 

 " authentic." Finally Mr. Grant expresses his intention of 

 exhibiting this " most interesting nest and eggs " at the next 

 meeting of the Zoological Society. 



I cannot , however, find any record of this having been done, 

 perhaps because Mr. Miller Christy, who carefully inspected the 

 nest and eggs not long afterwards, found them to be undoubtedly 

 those of the Common Eedbreast ! See the ' Zoologist ' 1888. p. 

 157, when it is suggested that the bird seen may have been an 

 ordinary Eedstart nesting near ; but from my own experience of 

 a somewhat similar case (which however did not find its way 

 into print) I am inclined to think that it was merely the hen 

 Eedbreast, hastily seen by credulous and untrained observers. 

 No notice of the eggs appears in the ' Catalogue of the Eggs ' in 

 the British Museum, Vol. 4, so we may presume that the 

 authorities of the British Museum have dispensed with Mr. 

 Grant's "interesting acquisition." 



In 1890 Mr. W. Oxenden Hammond reported in the 

 ■* Zoologist ' (p. 220) a second supposed instance of breeding in 

 Dumfriesshire. In this case the nest was found by a lady in a 

 stone " dyke," so that the site was not unlikely ; but as the 

 ground was worked over during that season b}"" no fewer than 

 three experienced field-naturalists, two of whom were resident 

 in the neighbourhood, and all of whom refused to accept the 

 record, there seems no doubt that it was due to the observer 

 mistaking the Common Eedstart for the rarer species (c/. ' Birds 

 of Dumfriesshire,' p. 15). Mr. Service adds that on two occasions 

 he has been sent for to see supposed Black Eedstarts' nests, but 

 both turned out to be the ordinary species. 

 • Up to the present year then, it may be definitely stated that 



