notes from mid-hants. 11 



June. 



The 2nd was a very early date for "hard-set" Swifts' eggs; 

 on this date we found the first clutch of Reed Warbler's eggs in 

 the willows. The first nests in this part of the country are 

 always built in willows ; it is not till the reeds have grown to a 

 good height that they build in them. A clutch of Peewit's eggs 

 found on the 4th must have been a second brood. On the 9th 

 I was shown a Great Tit's nest at the bottom of a perpendicular 

 pipe, about six feet long, ventilating a cesspool. Flying up straight 

 for six feet must have been very hard for the old birds, and the 

 rumbling noise they made in so doing sounded very strange. On 

 the 11th I found a Cuckoo's egg in an empty Reed Warbler's 

 nest. How did the Cuckoo know that the Reed Warbler had not 

 hatched off, but was going to lay, as she did about four days 

 afterwards ? On the 20th, whilst walking through a fir-plantation, 

 we saw a Long-eared Ow t 1 roosting, and by climbing up cautiously 

 I caught it — a this year's bird, nearly full grown. On the 28th 

 Mr. R. C. R. Ensor saw six Stone Curlews, CEdicnemus scolopax, 

 on a large warren near Hursley ; these birds still breed in some 

 numbers in Mid-Hants, especially round Newton Stacey (W. H. 

 Turle in litt.). On the 29th I identified a Wood Lark, Alauda 

 arborea, at Colden Common ; the Rev. P. H. Owen told me it 

 had been there all the season, so it probably nested. On the 

 30th I saw a large hawk skimming over the side of the downs; 

 it seemed most like a Common Buzzard, Bitteo vulgaris, — a bird 

 which Mr. Turle found nesting near Andover on May 11th, 1887. 

 The Hon. A. H. Baring tells me (in litt. Dec. 10th), that a man 

 cutting the grass at Itchen Stoke found a nest of the Quail, 

 Coturnix communis, and luckily mowed over the sitting bird's 

 head ; she stuck to her eggs and hatched successfully. One 

 young one was subsequently killed by the mowing-machine in a 

 field of mustard. Mr. Turle did not find the nest this year; but, 

 he says, a good many young birds were shot round Newton 

 Stacey — on one occasion eleven in one day. Two broods of 

 Tufted Ducks, Fuligula cristata, were hatched on the lake at the 

 Grange, Alresford, as in 1891. We are very badly off for ducks 

 in Mid-Hants, but the Tufted Duck occasionally occurs in winter; 

 Mr. Turle says (in litt. Dec. 12th), "about seven birds are now 

 on the pond at Laverstoke." 



