NOTES AND QUERIES. 307 



of the number of breeding birds. Last year I found the Common Tern 

 greatly preponderating in numbers as usual. Westward, from the entrance 

 to Rye Harbour to Winchelsea, is a fatiguing stretch (as is only too obvious 

 when one labours thereon throughout a luckless winter day with a heavy 

 double-barrel) of shingly coast, which widens as Pett Level is approached 

 and then abruptly terminates in a barrier of rising ground, which continues 

 in crumbly cliffs onward to Hastings. These " Levels " are yearly visited 

 by a few pairs of the Common and Lesser Terns, but always in very 

 precarious numbers. This year there has certainly not been an increase of 

 the Lesser, as I noticed only two pairs breeding. I have not succeeded in 

 verifying Mr. Gurney's belief that the Arctic Tern breeds near St. Leonards 

 (vide Borrer, ' Birds of Sussex,' p. 259). Indeed I have not seen a single 

 Tern of any kind on the beach between this town and Bexhill, some three 

 miles to the west, during the two years of my residence here. — W. C. J. 

 Ruskin Butterfield (St. Leonards-on-Sea). 



Dotterel at Scarborough. — On May 24th last I had brought to me 

 for identification a handsome adult female Dotterel, Endromias morinellus, 

 which had been killed that morning at Weaverthorpe, about nine miles 

 from Scarborough. It was in perfect plumage, and on dissection the ovaries 

 proved to contain well-developed eggs. — Wm. J. Clarke (44, Huntriss 

 Row, Scarborough). 



[The bird was probably on its way to its breeding haunts on one of the 

 northern fells, and it is to be regretted that in the case of a species whose 

 nesting haunts are uow so restricted the bird should have been shot in 

 defiance of the Wild Birds Protection Act. — Ed.1 



Polygamy in the Starling.— During the present summer I had under 

 observation, in a hole in a large beech-tree in the middle of a wood, a nest 

 of the Starling, which was owned by three birds. My attention was first 

 drawn to them when building by seeing three birds in succession come out 

 of the hole. I did not think much of the matter, supposing one to be a 

 bird of another pair which had gone to the nesting-hole for the purpose of 

 robbing some straw, &c. ; but on passing the place the following day, and 

 seeing the same thing happen, I determined to watch, and for that purpose 

 climbed a neighbouring tree, and during a stay of a couple of hours had the 

 satisfaction of seeing the three birds go into the hole with building materials 

 several times. I had the nest under observation till the young had flown. 

 I have never yet shot a nesting bird, holding that the non-observance of the 

 old command laid down in Deut. xxii. 6 (mentioned by Prof. Newton as the 

 " most ancient game-law in existence ') is a powerful factor in exterminating 

 a species, and 1 was, from the position of the hole, unable to secure the 

 sitting bird for examination by means of a landing-net ; but from what 

 I saw I am inclined to think that two of the birds were cocks and the other 



