18 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



(a fine male) shot in an orchard at Southrop, near Letchlade, 

 which is only just over our county borders, on the 23rd April. 



5th. — A Great Tit has eleven eggs in a nest in one of my 

 boxes ; the eggs were piled up to-day. 



6th. — Nightingale reported as heard in our paddock-walk (an 

 old haunt, long deserted, during the years this bird became un- 

 accountably rare in this district) a week ago. Swift appeared. 



7th. — Among some young Rooks shot to-day two had some 

 yellowish white on their bills, and one had a little white on the 

 chin. A Mistle-Thrush has built a nest in a pear-tree trained 

 like a pergola across the kitchen-garden path, seven feet from 

 the ground. To match the green leaves of the pear-tree, the nest 

 is formed externally almost entirely of green moss. There is a 

 very little mud in the walls, and a few bits of haulm and a bit of 

 tape. The nest is very inconspicuous, but my attention was 

 drawn to it by seeing several bits of green moss dropped on the 

 path. The nest had one egg in it to-day. I left home the next 

 day, and on my return found it had been deserted. 



8th. — Mr. Henry Blea, who keeps the ' White Lion' inn here, 

 happened this morning to see a case containing a pair of Stone 

 Curlews with young which I have in the hall. He then told me 

 that thirty or forty years ago he lived on a farm near Heythrop, 

 •and in those days the "Curloo " (as this bird is called in Oxford- 

 shire) frequented Cold Harbour and Showell farms. These farms 

 are at an elevation of about 600 ft. above the sea, and between 

 them the land rises to over 700 ft. The soil is the stony " stone- 

 brash," and the country very open and bleak. Mr. Blea said 

 there were never to his knowledge more than one or two pairs of 

 Curloos there each year. He described the open country they 

 frequented, the pace they ran, their habit of getting up quietly 

 and stealing away, their two eggs laid on the bare ground, and 

 the great difficulty he had in finding the two or three lots of eggs 

 he ever found. I may here mention that two eggs of this species, 

 taken at Ipsden on the Chilterns about the year 1887, have come 

 into my possession. They are the only Oxfordshire examples of 

 these eggs I have seen. 



12th. — News from Mr. Darbey of a Ring-Ouzel shot at Bletch- 

 ington on or about the 4th inst. 



June 3rd. — Examined a Pied Woodpecker and a Hawfinch, 



