Birds. 4895 



and all of the sixth except the skin of the back, which was rolled up under the mother, 

 where it remained until I removed it. The mother had undoubtedly made a meal of 

 her young, since nothing could have entered the tub without displacing the covering, 

 which was not moved. I have lately heard of another hedgehog killing her five young 

 ones, under similar circumstances. This is of common occurrence amongst rabbits, 

 but I have not heard previously of its being the case with regard to the hedgehog. — 

 /. F. Brockholes ; 7, Egerton Terrace, Birkenhead, September 29, 1 855. 



Note on the Cuckoo. — One morning, towards the end of last May, a country boy, 

 who for two or three seasons has procured me some small birds' eggs, found the nest 

 of a yellow bunting, containing one egg, which he left, expecting the bird to lay more. 

 On passing the place during the day, he observed a cuckoo near, and on looking into 

 the nest he missed the yellow bunting's egg, and found in its place that of a cuckoo. 

 Country boys in this district generally pull a bird's nest out on robbing it, so that the 

 cuckoo, in this case, must have taken the missing egg. There is a popular sayiug in 

 Lancashire, that cuckoos suck birds' eggs in order to make their voices clear, and the 

 above will tend to show that this is not entirely without foundation. The yellow 

 bunting afterwards laid two eggs in the same nest, and then forsook it. In a few days 

 the boy found another cuckoo's egg in a yellow wagtail's nest, and a third in a sedge 

 warbler's. The statement may be relied on, since I have never detected the boy in 

 trying to deceive me, although I have questioned him minutely. — J. F. Brockholes ; 

 7, Egerton Terrace, Birkenhead, September 29, 1855. 



Occurrence of the Hoopoe at Low Lay ton. — A person employed on Tyler's Farm, 

 near Low Layton, being engaged in catching sparrows, had the good fortune to capture 

 a young hoopoe, on the 7th of August last. — T. Bramley ; 9, Winchester Street, 

 Waterloo Town, Bethnal Green. 



A Valuable Hen. — A friend of mine has a hen, which, last spring, laid five or six 

 eggs per week, varying in weight from three to five ounces each : the shell of one which 

 weighed five ounces is now in my collection ; it is 3 T ' inches long and 2\ inches in 

 diameter through the widest part, is roughly finished, and presents the singular ap- 

 pearance of having been in three pieces, — that is to say, the two ends appear to have 

 been cemented to the centre portion before the whole was thoroughly hard. The egg 

 contained only one yolk, which was small in comparison with the size of the shell. 

 The hen combines the American, Dorking and a third breed of poultry. — «/. F. Brock- 

 holes ; 7, Egerton Terrace, Birkenhead, September 29, 1855. 



Occurrence of Rosecoloured Pastors near the Land's End. — I have just seen four 

 examples of the above beautiful bird, two males and two females ; three of them were 

 killed near the Land's End, and the fourth more eastward. — Edward Hearle Rodd; 

 Penzance, October 9, 1855. 



Occurrence of the Solitary Snipe near Penzance. — The first instance that has come 

 to my knowledge of the solitary snipe having been seen or killed in Cornwall was one 

 handed to me by the gamekeeper of W. B. Praed, Esq., of Trevathon, near this place, 

 who told me he shot it in a small wet morass near St. Ives: its weight was just 7 oz., 

 and from the indistinctness of the bars in its under plumage, with a remarkably short 

 beak, I think it is a bird of the year. — Id. 



Occurrence of the Spotted Crake and Avocet on the Exe. — On the 17th of 

 September I shot a spotted crake (Crex porzana), which rose from a patch of rushes 



