450 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



seeds in the mud with which the interior of the nest was plastered. 

 There was only one egg, of a dull blue colour, with maroon spots 

 on the larger end. 



Swallows often build their nests in remarkable situations. 

 Every year their dwellings may be seen in the coprolite sheds be- 

 longing to artificial manure works near Thetford, where the smell 

 is indescribable. One's olfactory organs must be affected before 

 realizing what it is ; but these Swallows seem to pay no heed, 

 and rear their broods each year in safety. Swallows also build 

 in the shops of the engineering works in this town, threading 

 their way unerringly through the revolving shafting, and quite 

 unmindful of the clang of the machinery. Nests, too, are to be 

 found each year on the joists beneath Aldeby Swing Bridge, near 

 Beccles, continually subject to the rattling and rolling of the 

 trains above them, and the snorting of steamers beneath. In a 

 boat-house at Martham this year, a Swallow's nest was found 

 built in the folds of a sail which had there been stored. I was 

 also struck by the fact in a recent visit to Rievaulx Abbey, 

 Yorkshire, that almost without exception there was a Swallow's 

 nest in each of the pointed arches of the Early English windows. 

 But for queer nooks and crannies in which to place nests, no bird 

 can approach the Blue Titmouse in its choice. It would seem to 

 be the exception rather than the rule to find a nest of this bird 

 where one would expect it. Each year there is a nest in the 

 letter-box of the Ink Factory at Barsham, and for many years a 

 " blue jimmy " used the village postal wall-box at Kilverstone for 

 purposes of nidification. In 1894 a Blue Tit safely reared its 

 brood in a crack about half an inch in width in the axle of one of 

 the staunches on the river Little Ouse, although people in crossing 

 from one side of the river to the other generally used this axle as 

 a hand-rail. At the same time there were eight callow youngsters 

 in a nest built in the crack between two bricks from which the 

 mortar had been weathered away in a wall near Thetford. In the 

 spring of this year a friend found a Blue Tit's nest in a hollow 

 gate-post, and with misdirected zeal split the post down the 

 middle until the nest was reached. In spite of this, the parent 

 bird refused to leave the eggs, which were on the point of being 

 hatched, allowing herself to be lifted off the nest without any sign 

 of fear. A still more curious instance has been published in the 



