OBNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FBOM NOBFOLK. 105 



influence of a warm day, began a rather feeble duet, accom- 

 panied by an up and down movement of the neck, but sufficient 

 to prove them not speechless. 



9th. — A Pied Chaffinch at Northrepps. 



10th. — Four Pied Flycatchers in Mr. Pashley's garden. 



11th. — A Marsh-Harrier's nestf quite ready for eggs, but not 

 containing any, found about two miles from the sea by a naturalist 

 who saw the female rise and quit it at twenty yards, there being 

 four other Harriers on the wing at the same time, a sight not 

 often enjoyed in England nowadays. Unfortunately the two old 

 Harriers brought themselves under the gamekeeper's fatal ban 

 by killing some leverets, and their identity, which had been 

 questioned, was only too well established shortly afterwards, as 

 this obnoxious individual trapped them both. The cock was 

 quite the finest old male that has been seen in Norfolk for many 

 a year, with grey wing-coverts, and a light tail and crown. The 

 Marsh-Harrier's nest was nine inches in diameter and raised 

 fourteen from the ground, but, as Mr. Bird remarked, as the 

 rushes grew the nest would naturally continue to rise a little 

 with them. It was composed of pieces of the " gladden " which 

 grows all round (Carex or Juncus), and a few dead hemlock 

 stems from the marsh wall, with one large bramble, and a bit of 

 rotten wood the thickness of a man's finger. A few yards off lay 

 the remains of a small leveret, the fatal appetite for which had 

 brought down the keeper's wrath. The marsh is what would be 

 called here a dry marsh, of large extent, a capital place at this 

 time of the year for Swallow-tailed Butterflies and Cuckoos, one 

 of which birds was seen by the marshman with an egg in its 

 mouth or else a young bird. Of this nest Mr. Kearton obtained 

 a good photograph, which is excellently reproduced in ' Our 

 Barer British Breeding Birds.' It is supposed to be twenty 

 years since any Marsh Harriers have been hatched off in 

 Norfolk, the last attempt, known to Mr. Bird, prior to this, 

 being in 1894, when two eggs are believed to have been laid 

 and two Bantam's eggs substituted for them, on which Mr. 

 Bird ascertained the old female Harrier sat. Probably she 

 shared the usual fate of all " Hawks " in a game-preserving 

 county long before she had time to find out the ruse which was 

 practised upon her. Mr. Stevenson considered that the Marsh 



