142 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



this salient point with due adequacy all through my paper. The less 

 obtrusive nests of Ring-Doves are by far the most frequently chosen in my 

 experience ; and when those of Carrion-Crows and Magpies are appro- 

 priated, they are so reduced in size and altered in shape by the inclemencies 

 of the preceding winter, or winters, as only to deserve the name of mere 

 remnants ; being, when utilised, frequently obscured from view bj the more 

 commanding structures of the Sparrow-Hawks themselves. Nevertheless, 

 the connection between these appropriated structures and the newly- 

 fashioned superstructures is obvious enough to anyone who realises its 

 probable existence, and will investigate closely; though it is my conviction 

 that countless times in the past the ancient foundation has been overlooked, 

 simply because not suspected to exist. For this very reason, too, hurling 

 authorities at one's head carries little weight, since in so many cases there 

 must be a doubt as to what is a pilfered assertion and what an original 

 observation. I am quite sure that Mr. Whitlock has strained, not to say 

 perverted, my meaning unwittingly ; but for all that, I wish to draw atten- 

 tion to the fact that I distinctly spoke of these appropriated nests as pre- 

 senting " a very ragged appearance previously to adaptatiou, being tattered 

 and torn by the storms and gales of winter." Again, I wrote : " Long ere 

 the leaf is out, sometimes, indeed, as early as the end of March, mental 

 selection is unquestionably made of the nest that is eventually to be utilised 

 as a breeding site." I also said that I had known " many a nest belonging 

 to an alien species one year, converted into a Sparrow-Hawk's the next " 

 and, finally, I alluded to " the ultra-extended platform built by the Sparrow- 

 Hawks themselves, and superadded to the relics of the nest of some other 

 species." I submit, then, that quotations such as these from my original 

 paper demonstrate, beyond all possibility of cavil, that the fact of Sparrow- 

 Hawks disdaining to utilise Magpies' nests of the year has no bearing what- 

 soever on, or affects in the slightest degree, the specific i-sue raised by me. 

 They conclusively prove that my thoughts were concentrated on the appro- 

 priation, not of modern nests, as inferred by Mr. Whitlock, but of the 

 remains of ancient ones ; and I will only add that I regret having had to 

 supplement what I wrote in May with such copious explanations in July 

 and September — to the exclusion, it may well be, of iDfinitely more interest- 

 ing matter from other sources. — H. S. Davenport. 



A Moorhen's Nesting Site. — A rather curious site for a Moorhen's 

 nest came under my observation on the date of writing (July 81st). On the 

 large lake of the park of this town a wooden raft has been moored to the 

 bank, and at the end of the raft a ' ' Waterben " is sitting on its nest. — 

 Chas. Milburn (Russel Street, Middlesbro'.). 



Andersonian Naturalist's Society. — At the fifth meeting of the 

 twelfth session of this society — held in the Andersonian Buildings, Glasgow; 



