NOTES AND QUERIES. 71 



that the majority of the specimens had been so badly attacked by moths 

 and mould that it was desirable to have the greater part of them destroyed. 

 Among the number of those preserved was a very fair specimen of Ardea 

 garzetta, and pasted on the back of the case which contained it was a label, 

 turned yellow by age, bearing the following inscription : — " Egret. Male. 

 Shot March, 1826, near Paul Humberside, Yorkshire." All this is quite 

 clear, but there is no trace of initials or name of the owner or collector. 

 The record is, however, intact and indisputable. It only remains for me to 

 add my apology for having kept ornithologists so long in ignorance of such 

 an interesting fact. Besides the foregoing, there were also the following 

 species, bearing labels in the same handwriting : — 



Machetes pugnax, Liun. — " Ruff . . . Yorkshire," ... is all that I can 

 make out. Tiiese are two specimens of each sex in breeding plumage. One 

 of the males has a dark purplish ruff finely vermiculated with buff-white ; 

 the other is cream-coloured, sparingly marked with isolated blackish ver- 

 miculatioDS. 



Himantopus candidus, Bon. — Labelled " Long-legged Plover 



Linconshire." .... All the rest is illegible. 



Milvus ictinus, Sav. — " Kite. Female. Caught in a trap, June, 1824, 

 Eglinton Wood, near Doncaster." 



Perhaps it may be well to add that the first named species has been 

 remounted, but before I did this I made a photograph of the specimen as it 

 was originally stuffed. — Robt. Newstead (Grosvenor Museum, Chester). 



Bittern in Oxfordshire. — A specimen of the Bittern {Botaurus stellaris) 

 was brought to me for identification on Jan. 26ch, having been shot on that 

 date near Ridge's Weir, on the Thames, by a gamekeeper in the employ of 

 a local gentleman. Though the bird was shot on the Oxfordshire side of 

 the stream, the ornithologists of Berkshire would, I should imagine, be 

 perfectly justified in claiming it as well, seeing that the two counties are 

 there merely divided by the Thames. One of the best authorities on the 

 Birds of Oxfordshire informs me that the Bittern must now be regarded as 

 a rare winter visitor to Oxfordshire. Last year he heard of four specimens 

 having occurred in the county. The year 1900 was, he states, remarkable 

 all over the kingdom for the number of Bitterns which were either shot or 

 seen. — W. H. Warner (Fyfield, near Abingdon). 



The Nesting Habits of Moor-hens. — I have been much interested in 

 the article on Moor-hens by your contributor, Mr. Oliver G. Pike {ante, 

 p. 17) ; and, since he asks if this habit of building nests as landing stages 

 for the young has been observed by other correspondents, I may mention 

 that I have frequently observed it, and that a note to that effect was pub- 

 lished in the 'Avicultural Magazine' for January, 1898 (vol. iv. p. 52). 



