8720 Birds. 



contained one nest or more. It is remarkable that nearly one-fourth of the whole 

 number of the eggs of this species which I have seen this season have been of the 

 spotted variety ; this is an unusually high average. — Henry L. Saxby ; Baltasound, 

 Shetland, July 29, 1863. 



The Chaffinch and the Gooseberry Grub. — I have read with interest Mr. Ranson's 

 remarks at Zool. 8H80. I am happy to add another bird to the list of those few known 

 to be inimical to that most noxious pest the larva of Nematus ventrbosus. 1 have a 

 few gooseberry bushes under my study window which are and have been swarming 

 with it. A week or two since I was delighted to see an old cock chaffinch busily 

 engaged in collecting them in his bill, and carrying them off in bundles to feed his 

 young ones in an adjoining tree. My friend Mr. Doubleday had previously mentioned 

 this fact to me, but I had never been fortunate enough to witness it with my own 

 eyes. — H. Harpur Crewe ; Rectory, Drayton- Beauchamp, Tring t August 5, 1863. 



Frequent Occurrence of the Eggs and Young of the Cuckoo in Nests of the Rock 

 Pipit. — On the 7th iust., while hunting for nests over some cliffs near here, I observed 

 a rock pipit in the act of leaving her nest, which I found to be occupied by a lusty 

 young cuckoo. I identify ihe nest by a good view of the bird and by an egg which I 

 found just outside of it, excluded, I presume, by the broad back of the intruder. This 

 is the fourth nest I have found of this species in two seasons, viz. % the present one and 

 that of 1861, each containing either an egg or a young one of the "vagrant" cuckoo 

 as Gilbert White well describes it. — C. E. Seaman, Northwood, Isle of Wight, July 

 21, 1863. 



Cuckoo's Egg in a Linnet's Nest. — I do not remember ever having seen an instance 

 of a cuckoo's egg being found in a linnet's nest recorded in any book or periodical. I 

 found one in June, 1857, the linnet sitting on it and five of her own eggs. The nest 

 was in a close furze bush, within fifty yards of a boy's cricket ground near this place, 

 and as there was little chance of the foster bird being permitted to hatch I took the 

 egg and preserved it. It is a large one and a strange contrast in size with the eggs 

 by which it was surrounded. — Charles Bridger ; Withy, Surrey, July 7, 1863. 



Nests of the Creeper. — Two nests of the creeper have come under my notice this 

 season, both mainly constructed of bark, and both unusually placed. One occupied a 

 small hole in a dilapidated out-building belonging to an uninhabited house, and this 

 I was not able to examine for some lime, until the young ones had taken leave of their 

 birthplace, when I found it unfit to keep. The other was in the fork of a large juniper 

 tree, a remarkably pretty nest, built, I believe, chiefly of the bark of the juniper, and 

 lined with feathers. I have preserved it. — Id. 



Nest of the Jay built in Common Ling. — In one of my evening walks over Witley 

 Common, in May last, a pair of jays and some other birds uttering cries of distress 

 drew my attention to a dense mass of young Scotch fir trees, in the midst of which I 

 found a jay's nest, in what seemed to me a very unusual place, viz., in a fine plant of 

 common ling, and within a foot of the ground. There was one young one in the nest 

 alive and one on the ground dead. An enemy, perhaps a weazel, had evidently found 

 the nest and abstracted one of the young ones, — hence the trouble of the parent birds. 

 — Id. 



Variety of Hooded Crow. — Yesterday, as I was walking along the edge of a low 

 sea-cliff in the island of Yell, a pair of hooded crows flew out from their nest, and one 

 of them, which appeared to be the male, had the whole of the wing-coverts perfectly 



