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NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



INSECTIVORA. 



Lesser Shrew in Devon.— Early in September my friend Mr. Frank 

 Brownsword sent me an adult Lesser Shrew, Sorex minutus, which had 

 been brought into his house at Shebbear, North Devon, by a cat. — Chas. 

 Oldham (Sale). 



AVES. 



Montagu's Harrier breeding in Ireland.— On August 24th last I 

 received a letter from my cousin in Co. Kerry enclosing in the flesh what 

 I identified as a young female Montagu's Harrier. He had shot it on 

 Aug. 20th, and writes : — " I have seen six birds of this kind (four young 

 and two old) constantly about in a rocky ravine near here, and the one I 

 enclose is a young bird. . . . The old hawks make a strange clucking 

 noise, and the young a kind of whistling scream." I have skinned the 

 bird, and Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, on inspection, kindly confirmed my identi- 

 fication. The exact spot where the specimen was killed has been given 

 me, but I refrain from disclosing it, in case any of the birds should nest 

 there again next year. According to Mr. Howard Saunders's ' Manual of 

 British Birds,' Circus cineraceus has only occurred three times in Ireland, 

 and has never before been reported as having nested ; so that the above 

 facts seem well worth recording. — John H. Teesdale (St. Margaret's, 

 West Dulwich, S.E.). 



The Eggs of the Roseate Tern. — With reference to my remarks on 

 the nesting of the Roseate Tern, Sterna dougalli, in the British Isles, 

 which appeared in the April number of 'The Zoologist' (p. 165), it will be 

 remembered that I therein emphatically stated that their eggs were easily 

 distinguishable from those of allied species, notwithstanding the late Mr. 

 Henry Seebohm's statement to the contrary in his recent work on Eggs of 

 British Birds, and I will now endeavour to describe their general character. 

 I was under the impression, until quite recently, that these notes would be 

 original, but I find that the late (?) Rev. J. C. Atkinson, in his book on 

 'British Birds, their Eggs and Nests,' published in 1861, says: "Closer 

 observation only has distinguished between their eggs and those of their 

 more numerous associates." This is the fact, and an experienced eye can 



