36 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



had a look at the birds, and as I had not seen them before I went to the 

 Museum and recognised the birds to be Dartford Warblers ; they seemed to 

 be brighter coloured than the Museum ones. To make sure, I sent the egg 

 to Mr. Jeffreys, at Tenby, who also said it was an egg of that bird. I 

 afterwards exchanged it with Mr. Ford, Bawdsey House, Suffolk. The nest 

 was like a Whitethroat's, placed in the middle of a thick furze bush. The 

 birds did not rise when I came upon them, but dropped to the ground and 

 crept away. The next time I visited the spot there were four young ones." — 

 H. Kirke Swann. 



"Nesting Habits of the Oyster-Catcher." — The article under this 

 heading in the first number of the ' ' Ornithologist " I read with much interest, 

 as the coast described is very similar to a stretch of ten or twelve miles running 

 from here north, where the bird is common, and I send a few supplementary 

 notes in case they may be of interest. Like the writer, I have found four 

 eggs a very unusual clutch, aud amongst several hundreds examined have 

 only met with it twice. But I have been most fortunate in varieties, having 

 taken several with the markings forming a zone round the larger end (but 

 never the smaller, as is common with the Ringed Plover, Stonechat, and many 

 other birds). In one clutch of three the markings were in fine lines of a 

 pale reddish-brown — thickest about halfway above the middle of the egg — 

 another, a pale cream ground, with faint red dots sparingly interspersed with 

 larger dark blotches. In addition to the large blotches of reddish-brown or 

 black (which are partially removable if rubbed when wet), many eggs have 

 an under-pattern of faint markings of smaller size printed in the shell, as it 

 were, which add greatly to its beauty. Eggs laid on the sand I have found 

 particularly easy to discover, especially in dry weather, from the footprints 

 of the birds converging to a common centre. lean generally "spot" the 

 nest at from 50 to 100 yards distance. Finding them on shingle is, however, 

 another matter. This bird is also fairly distributed along the low cliffs in 

 the breeding season, and I have taken eggs both on the mainland and on all 

 the islands as far as Bardsey. Curiously enough, the eggs I have seen on the 

 rocky coast of Carnarvon are all of one type and distinctly smaller than most 

 found on the longshore here. The writer's description of the cry of the 

 Oyster-catcher is an instance of the difficulty (nay, impossibility) of convey- 

 ing in writing (or indeed by human sounds) an exact idea of the cries of 

 birds. To my ear it sounds like " Quip, quip "—a sharp, whip-like cry as 

 though abruptly cut off at both ends. Other birds met with in the same 

 haunts (longshore) are the Ringed Plover and Lesser Tern, and occasionally 

 the Common Sandpiper. Eggs of this bird I have always found in a nest 

 well made of seaweed and bents, never on the bare shingle. — F. C. Rawlings 

 ( Yarmouth) . 



