312 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of at least one pair would be secured. The Raven and Buzzard still hold 

 their own fairly. I have known nine nesting sites tenanted this year by 

 the former bird, and could point out a district where a dozen pairs of 

 Buzzards may be found breeding within a three-mile radius ; but the Kite, 

 from its mode of nesting, is more exposed to danger. The farmer who 

 showed me the eggs had been familiar with Kites in this locality for thirty 

 years or more. He told how, ten or twelve years ago, he had counted 

 fourteen Kites as they came to roost in the wood where the first nest was 

 built, and how he once saw nine perched on a tree in a neighbouring gulley. 

 Once also he had seen an albino Kite. I fear that, unless naturalists will 

 exert themselves on its behalf, the end of the century will see the extinction 

 of the Kite in Wales. — J. H. Salter (University College, Aberystwyth). 



[We entirely concur in the remarks of our correspondent, and would 

 willingly co-operate in any scheme to secure the protection of the few pairs 

 of Kites which still linger in their ancient breeding haunts. Perhaps a 

 memorial to the landowners urging forbearance on the part of their 

 keepers, signed by a number of naturalists, might have the desired 

 effect.— Ed.] 



Fertility of the Meadow Pipit in Norway. — Having lately found 

 seventeen nests of Anthus pratensis ou the Norwegian fells, I give the 

 number of eggs found in them, showing an average of 5*53 eggs per 

 nest : — 3 nests with seven eggs each ; 7 with six ; 4 with five ; 2 with 

 four; 1 with three. In every case the bird was flushed from the nest, 

 which indeed led to its discovery. In the last case the bird would 

 doubtless have laid more than three eggs. All the eggs were found in 

 June. In Norway the Meadow Pipit, as a rule, nests only on the fells, 

 not on low ground as in England, though on one occasion I found a nest 

 near Stavanger less than 200 feet above the sea. — John P. Thomasson 

 (Woodside, Bolton). 



Hobby in Worcestershire. — On May 7th, whilst strolling through one 

 of the largest coverts in this county, I found a male Hobby with its wing 

 broken, and, strangely, it was fluttering beneath the nest of a Sparrowhawk 

 containing two eggs. I have since sought diligently to find them breeding 

 here, but in vain, although I have enquired from the keepers, who know of 

 two sorts of hawks only. Still I hope to meet with the bird again, and 

 I think a reward offered for a nest shown, and a further reward when 

 proof is given of the young birds having flown, will go some way to protect 

 this little falcon from its otherwise certain doom. — J. Steele Elliott 

 (Dudley). 



Montagu's Harrier nesting in Cambridgeshire. — It may interest 

 some of your readers to know that Montagu's Harrier, Circus cineraceus, 

 has been breeding once more in the fens near Cambridge this summer. 



