CUBIOUS NESTS AND NESTING SITES. 451 



4 Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society,' 

 wherein it is recorded that about 1819 a man named Camplin 

 climbed a gibbet in the parish of Wereham, Norfolk, upon which 

 had been executed a person named Bennett, the trial taking place 

 at Thetford. In the head of the skeleton a Blue Tit had built its 

 nest, and the terrified family of nine or ten flew out on being 

 disturbed. Another peculiar instance occurred this year at Stow 

 Bedon Station, as related to me by the station-master. Two 

 nests of the Blue Titmouse were there built in the point-box, 

 one of them containing six and the other two eggs — the nests 

 being built by different birds. Both nests were lined with feathers 

 which the station-master's wife had turned out of a pillow. De- 

 spite the fact that the position of the nests was changed each 

 time the points were moved, and that eight or nine persons were 

 often observing this curiosity at one time, the six eggs were safely 

 hatched and the young fledged — the other nest being deserted. 



For many years past there has been a Great Tit's nest in a 

 pump in the garden at Great Fakenham Bectory, which is always 

 undisturbed by the owner — an ardent naturalist. In Gallow's 

 Pits, Thetford, criminals were formerly interred after execution 

 by the manorial or episcopal courts which could then enforce the 

 penalty of death ; now the pits are used as receptacles for rubbish. 

 Amongst the miscellaneous collection of kettles to be found 

 there, a Robin generally builds its nest year by year. Starlings 

 notoriously nest in queer places. In a railway bridge at Santon, 

 Norfolk, six bricks were missing, three on each side. Of the six 

 holes, five were tenanted this year by Starlings. In the crotch of 

 a beech tree in a plantation at Kilverstone, Norfolk, a piece of 

 oak-bark had become fixed about three feet from the ground. 

 Upon this bark a Nightjar had deposited its two eggs, in preference 

 to the bare earth. A somewhat similar case occurred this year 

 on Peddar's Way, East Wretham. A piece of the outer bark of 

 a pine tree had been blown into the middle of a hawthorn bush, 

 the concave side being uppermost. In this a Blackbird's nest 

 had been built, the rim of the nest being level on either side with 

 the edge of the bark. A short distance away was a big stack of 

 fallen pines — relics of the great gale of 1895. The heart of one 

 of these trees had rotted, and in the cavity thus formed was a 

 Redstart's nest containing three eggs. In 1893 one of these 



