NOTES AND QUERIES. 37 



with a telescope, see the white edgings of the feathei-3 quite plainly. 

 This Diver has not been noticed previously on any of the Cheshire 

 meres. — Chas. Oldham (Knutsford). 



Late Nesting of the Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus). — 

 By the end of August most of the young Great Crested Grebes are 

 independent of their parents, and it is unusual, on the Cheshire meres, 

 to see the old birds feeding young ones in September. In 1904, how- 

 ever, two pairs of Grebes on Tatton Mere, near Knutsford, had un- 

 usually late broods — possibly their young had been destroyed, and they 

 had laid again in late summer. Be that as it may, on Sept. 18th I saw 

 a pair of Grebes in attendance on two downy young ones, and a third 

 adult was feeding a single young one rather larger than the other two. 

 I saw these three young ones being fed at intervals up to Oct. 15tb, 

 and on Nov. 6th the two smaller birds were still following their parents 

 with querulous hunger cries. On the afternoon of Nov. 12th one of 

 these young ones was still calling incessantly, and I saw it fed several 

 times by one of the old birds. — Chas. Oldham (Knutsford). 



Some Old Welsh Bird Notes. — I have often wished that some of 

 the writers who in the earlier part of the nineteenth century published 

 tours in Wales had mentioned the birds they saw. But hardly any of 

 them have done so. And when the other day I picked up a copy of 

 the 'Journal of a Tour in North Wales,' by Arthur Aikin, published in 

 1797, which, according to the title-page, included observations in 

 mineralogy and other branches of natural history, my hopes revived. 

 But on turning over the pages I found that, although there was a good 

 deal about geology, and something about plants, birds were only men- 

 tioned some half-dozen times. As, however, the tour was made as long 

 ago as 1796, and the author had evidently had some training as a 

 naturalist, these few bird-notes may be trusted, and will perhaps be 

 interesting to the readers of 'The Zoologist.' 



Speaking of the Berwyns, which he crossed from Llangynnog to 

 Bala, the author writes : — "Kites, moor-buzzards, and other birds of 

 prey here make their nests in security ; and the long heath shelters 

 the grous, a race that would have been extinct here but for the wide 

 range of these wild mountains, and which, notwithstanding their pro- 

 tection, is rapidly on the decline, owing principally to the improved 

 state of the roads, which admit the carriage of game to greater dis- 

 tances than formerly." The range of high slate-rocks, worn into 

 caverns and recesses by the dashing of the waves, to the north cf 

 Aberystwyth Castle, afforded at that time a secure abode for Hawks, 

 Ravens, and various species of Gulls, and other sea-birds. On July 



