436 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Saunders's 'Manual'), although (as the bird is stuffed) the wings look 

 very short for this species. This example has the under parts well 

 marked with longitudinal streaks, and it has been suggested to me that 

 for this reason it caunot be Montagu's Harrier, and tbat I identified it 

 wrongly. I should be very glad to hear from anyone who has sexed 

 examples of young Montagu's Harriers. — 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Moorhens feeding Young. — On July 13th I watched a pair of Moor- 

 hens [Oallinula chloropus) swimming about in a small pond with their 

 brood of six newly-hatched young ones — tiny balls of black fluff with 

 red bills. Both the old birds were feeding the youngsters with insects 

 taken from the surface of the water, and, as far as I could see, with 

 small pieces of water- weed ; also on one occasion with a morsel off a 

 lump of bread which was floating on the water. Swimming in the same 

 pond were three full-grown young birds of the year (in the grey-brown 

 plumage, with green bill and legs), presumably the first brood of the old 

 pair, and I was interested to observe that these fed the newly-hatched 

 young ones with as great assiduity as did the old birds, and that the 

 young ones followed them about quite as much as they did - their parents. 

 I see that this habit, which was new to me, is not unknown, for Mr. 

 Howard Saunders, in his ' Manual' (p. 518), says : — " Two, if not three, 

 broods are produced in the season, the young from the first nest assisting 

 their parents in building another, and even in taking care of the second 

 brood." The method of feeding struck me as peculiar. The old bird, 

 on catching an insect, swam up, and presented it to the youngster, 

 who picked it out of his (or her) bill. Never once did the old hivi place 

 it in the young one's mouth, as is usually the case in birds which feed 

 their young, nor the young one open its bill to receive it. — Bernard B. 

 Riviere (" Flaxley," 82, Finchley Road, N.W.). 



Ornithological Incidents at Petersfield. — Noteworthy incidents 

 have been singularly scarce in this locality during the present year. 

 I have only to record an instance of two Cuckoo's eggs in the nest of a 

 Hedge- Sparrow containing two eggs of the rightful owner. This 

 occurred early in June in a hedge by the roadside near Theale, Berk- 

 shire. A little later in the month two more Cuckoo's eggs were found 

 in a Hedge-Sparrow's nest, close to the site of the first nest. — H. 

 Marmaduke Langdale (The Vicarage, Compton, Petersfield). 



INSECTA. 

 Morphological Interpretation. — Dear Mr. Distant, — In the intro- 

 troduction to your first volume on the ' Rhynchota of British India ' 

 (p. xxx) you say : — " In some Reduviids the antennas are apparently 



