Birds. 3027 



numbers. In many respects the dipper is very like the common wren, 

 especially when he flirts his tail up and down, and his nest, too, is very 

 similar. I once saw a pair of water ouzels going backwards and for- 

 wards to their nest, which was situated in a strange place ; it was in 

 the Canton Appenzell, in Switzerland, at the foot of the famous Eben 

 Alp, and where the torrent, in three successive leaps, falls some hun- 

 dred feet from its feeder, the deep little lake of See-Alp, said to be 

 unfathomable : behind one of these falls, where the stream shot out 

 from the face of the rock, the water ouzels had made their nest; they 

 were very busy supplying their young ones with food when I was 

 there, and so I saw them going and returning many times ; flying to 

 the side of the great fall, and then darting in behind the descending 

 sheet of water: what a strange place for a cradle, and how difficult it 

 must have been for the young ones to leave their nest for the first time : 

 the body of water was so great, and the fall so high, that had they 

 fluttered into it, they must have been dashed to death against the 

 rocks ; but no doubt the old birds knew how to guide them safely 

 away. 



Alfred Charles Smith. 



Old Park, Devizes, 



January 2, 1851. 



(To be continued). 



Remarkable Bird's Nest. — The nest mentioned in the 'Zoologist' (Zool. 2967) by 

 your correspondent, the Kev. Mr. Amherst, is undoubtedly that of the lesser redpole. 

 I have frequently found its beautiful little nest in a situation exactly similar to that 

 described by him, and sometimes as smoothly lined with the pure white catkins of the 

 willow, as a box of jewels with the finest cotton wool. There is no other small English 

 bird, except the chaffinch, which chooses a similar situation for its nest, and no other 

 bird besides, except the gold-crested wren, which makes so small a nest. The eggs 

 are sometimes so blue as to retain much of the colour after they are blown. — W. C. 

 Hewitson; Oatlands, January, 1851. 



Occurrence of the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) in Herefordshire. — Thinking 

 you may not happen to hear of the occurrence of the golden eagle in Herefordshire, I 

 copy the following notice from the ' Worcester Journal.' " A few days ago a large 

 eagle, quite a rara avis in this part of the country, was taken in a trap, near the man- 

 sion of J. Arkwright, Esq., of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, by one of the under- 

 keepers. Its wings, when expanded, measure seven feet from tip to tip. It is said 

 to be of the golden species." — W. H. Cordeaux ; Canterbury, January 8, 1S51. 



Occurrence of the Goshaiv/c (Falco palumbarius) in Norfolk. — A specimen of the 

 goshawk, apparently a female of the present year, was shot last week, a few miles 



