NOTES AND QUEBIES. 143 



nest of the Wagtails, with the result that a very sturdy young Cuckoo has 

 monopolized the space usually occupied by some four Wagtails, and has 

 secured for himself the nutriment which should have been divided amongst 

 the whole family. The bird in question is so far advanced as to have left 

 its borrowed home, and may daily be seen with gaping mouth awaiting the 

 visits of its foster-parents, whose energy is somewhat severely taxed in 

 supplying the wants of their giant offspring, whom they doubtless regard 

 as a very undesirable boarder. — F. G. Nicholson (Pretoria, Transvaal, 

 January, 1897). 



[The nest of the Cape Wagtail is usually found in wall-crevices, 

 banks, crannies of rock, or in some creeping vegetation on a wall or tree. 

 Mr. Nicholson now records it as found in garden shrubs, and I have seen 

 it in thorn-bushes on the veld. Mrs. Barber has stated that the Golden 

 Cuckoos lay pure white eggs in the nests of the Cape Bunting, Fringillaria 

 capensis (F. vittata, Lay.) and all the Nectaninia (Sun-birds). Mr. Jackson 

 found pure white eggs — which have been considered to belong to this 

 Cuckoo— in nests of the Rufous-chested Weaver-bird, Hyphantomis 

 capitalis. — Ed.] 



Unusually large number of Pintails in Co. Mayo.— The unusually 

 large numbers of Pintails visiting the estuary this season is very remarkable, 

 when the mildness of the weather is considered, and except during the 

 hard frost of January, 1881, when the mercury fell to 7° on the night of 

 the 15th, I have never seen their numbers equalled. We usually have a 

 little family party of twelve to fifteen birds regularly visiting the sands in 

 company of Wigeon every winter ; but last month a flock of eighty birds 

 was seen by Capt. Kirkwood, of Bartragh, feeding in a sandy bay within 

 sight of his parlour-windows, and I have myself on several occasions counted 

 upwards of fifty feeding together. It would be interesting to learn if there 

 has been an unusually large migration to other parts of the coast this 

 season.— Robert Warren (Moyview, Ballina, Feb. 6th, 1897). 



Green Sandpiper in Co. Waterford.— Two specimens of this species 

 were shot in Curraghmore on the 23rd and 25th November last year. 

 They frequented the sides of the pond, and were very wild. Mr. E. 

 Williams, who is mounting them for me, says that the contents of the stomach 

 of both birds were in such a soft and liquid state that it was impossible to 

 know on what they had been feeding. Thompson states, on the authority 

 of the late Dr. R. J. Burkitt, that " the Green Sandpiper is very rarely 

 seen near Waterford." My friend Mr. Ussher informs me that he has 

 shot it on three occasions in the county. — William W. Flemyng (Coolfin, 

 Portia w, Co. Waterford). 



Vultures and the Towers of Silence.— In connection with the bubonic 

 plague now decimating certain parts of India, the following facts, communicated 



