NOTES AND QUERIES. 451 



After remarking that he had shot one in Charleton Forest in Sussex, he 

 adds that he had " once found a nest there, built in a strange, wild 

 manner, and with four eggs in it." This statement need not be too hastily 

 discredited, for his description of the Golden Eagle — " the size of a turkey 

 with legs feathered down to the toes" — is detailed, and does not appear appli- 

 cable to any other raptorial species; indeed it may have been taken, and very 

 likely was, from the one he shot, though the number of eggs in the nest 

 is certainly rather indicative of a Buzzard. Further on he mentions a 

 Goshawk's nest in Rockingham Forest, in Northamptonshire, remarking 

 that these birds are very bold, and that a servant who climbed the tree, 

 probably to take the young, was attacked with the utmost fury by both the 

 parents, and wounded in the face. There is nothing improbable in the 

 supposition that this nest was that of a Goshawk, and Dr. Hill's statement 

 that this bird " breeds with us in woods," may be applied to England as 

 well as Scotland, where in the early part of the eighteenth century it was 

 probably common. Other birds of prey also come in for a share of his 

 attention, and his remarks will repay reading, for the worthy doctor has 

 many notes of interest scattered throughout his bulky volume. In Lincoln- 

 shire he met with large flocks of Cranes, and in the same forest where he 

 found the supposed Golden Eagle's nest he saw a Roller, and on the 

 downs of Sussex great numbers of Bustards. He also killed four Black 

 Grouse " on Hindhead, a vast mountainous heath on the Portsmouth road," 

 and his account of the Bittern is evidently from personal observation, at a 

 time when, as he says, they were " very common in our fen countries."— 

 J. H. Gukney (Keswick Hall, Norwich). 



Black Tern in Wales.— In 'The Zoologist' for October last (p. 381) 

 Mr. Mainwaring has recorded the occurrence of the Black Tern in North 

 Wales, and remarks on its rarity in the Principality. It has also occurred 

 on Llangorse Lake, Breconshire. It is stated in the ■ Transactions' of the 

 Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1890-92, that two specimens of this 

 bird were shot there in 1889, and were preserved. The Common Tern is 

 often to be seen on that lake, and the Lesser Tern occasionally ; but I 

 believe this is the only instance on record of the occurrence of the Black 

 Tern on this sheet of water. — E. A. Swainson (Woodlands, Brecon). 



Supposed Breeding of the Crested Lark in Kent. — Among the 

 oological discoveries this year none is perhaps likely to evoke more interest 

 than the egg of the Crested Lark (Alauda cristata), taken in Romney Marsh 

 on June 7th, and subsequently purchased by me at Stevens's Auction 

 Rooms. The recorded evidence of the breeding of this bird in England 

 having hitherto been confined to one alleged instance, at Ibiston, near 

 Cambridge, in 1881 (Zool. 1883, p. 178), ornithologists will doubtless be 

 glad to hear of a well-authenticated case, the parent birds having been seen 

 by Mr. Sydney Webb, as well as by Mr. George Gray, a well-known 



