548 ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 
battles and love-affairs at the regular places for eleven weeks. 
They commence to call soon after three o’clock, but leave 
off altogether between five and six, especially on warm 
mornings. The old pugnacious cocks already show the 
effects of this prolonged “ Balz,” for their necks are bare 
and the gloss of their plumage is worn off, while the hens 
all appear to be breeding, as they no longer come to the 
trysting-places, 
On May 4th a somewhat strong but very mild south wind 
was blowing, which continued throughout the night of the 
dth, and after two fine days brought up clouds and stormy 
weather with passing showers of heavy rain. 
Before three o’clock on the morning of the 5th I was walk- 
ing along the edge of the wood that lies nearest to Prague, 
and from which an almost unbroken stretch of fertile fields 
runs right up to the town, when I suddenly heard the ery of 
the Eagle-Owl (Bubo maximus). I stole up to the place 
whence the sound came ; but unfortunately the shy bird would 
not let me get within range, but flew away over the fields 
when I was about eighty yards from it. 
Soon after this, as I was sitting in a Blackcock hut hard by 
I heard the call of the Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus). It 
kept sounding its disagreeable note until a few minutes before 
sunrise, when it was relieved by the Nightingale (Luscinia 
philomela), while as soon as the sun was up the song of the 
Oriole (Oriolus galbulu) resounded from all the higher 
woods. These three birds I now heard for the first time 
this year, and I also greeted as a fresh arrival the Turtle- 
Dove (Turtur auritus), which, singularly enough, was silent 
all that morning. 
Both the last-mentioned species are very abundant in the 
neighbourhood of Prague, but generally only in the clumps 
of trees about the fields and in the large gardens. I never 
saw so many of them in the thick woods as on May 5th, and 
