304 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



dull purplish spots and blotches, especially at the larger end. The nest 

 was about twelve paces from the edge of the osier-bed, on dry ground, but 

 close to a ditch of running water. It is in Oxon, but within twenty yards 

 or so of Gloucestershire. Adjacent to it is a field of wheat, and hard 

 by is also a field of beans, in one corner of which, oddly enough, a Reed 

 Warbler — a bird almost unknown here hitherto — has sung every day to 

 me as I passed it on my way to the nest of its cousin. — W. Warde 

 Fowler (Kingham, Chipping Norton). 



Hybridity. — I should be much obliged to any readers of ' The 

 Zoologist' who will send me notes of any facts which have come to their 

 knowledge respecting hybridity, the interbreeding of species. I should 

 also be grateful for hybrid specimens for examination and to illustrate my 

 work, ' Wild Hybrid Birds,' of which four parts are already published, and 

 shall be glad to pay all expenses of transit. — A. Suchetet, Breaute, par 

 Goderville (Seine Inferieure). 



The Common Sandpiper nesting in the Eastern Counties.— It does 

 not appear, so far as I can ascertain from the published accounts, that the 

 Common Sandpiper, Totanus hypoleucus, has so far been recorded as nesting 

 anywhere in the Eastern Counties between the Thames and Humber, its 

 occurrence being restricted to a double passage in the spring and autumn. 

 It is therefore with some satisfaction that I am able to record it as nesting 

 recently in Lincolnshire. The Rev. C. W. Whistler, of Theddlethorpe (an 

 excellent naturalist), informs me that on June 16th, 1890, he and his 

 brother found two nests near each other in a wide depression, or marsh, 

 amongst the Lincolnshire sand-hills. I am well acquainted with the 

 locality, which, except in very dry years, holds shallow pools of water, of 

 considerable extent, surrounded by sedges and rough herbage, with patches 

 of bare shingle or sand. The nests were on slightly elevated ground — an 

 island when the water is out — and they were somewhat pyramidal in 

 shape, with shallow depressions in the centre. In both cases the young 

 had left the nest, and the egg-shells were found near one of them. From the 

 actions of the two pairs of birds, there could be no doubt the young were 

 close at hand, one of the parents doing the broken-wing trick to perfection 

 in endeavours to draw the intruders from the spot. A few Sandpipers 

 frequent the Trent between this county and Lincolnshire through the 

 summer, and I have seen two, and sometimes three, on the Idle at this 

 place throughout the spring and summer months up to this date, but without 

 any proof of their having nested.— John Cordeaux (Eaton Hall, Retford). 



Green Sandpiper in Lincolnshire in June. — On July 1st I saw at 

 Mr. Fieldsend's shop at Lincoln an adult Green Sandpiper, Totam 

 ochropus, which was brought to him by a labourer whe stated that he shot it 



