NOTES AND QUERIES. 311 



said by the author quoted to be anteriorly tinged with red in the lower 

 parts ; it frequents moors, &c. ; but he does not mention mountains, 

 but states the nest is usually placed on a grassy bank, &c. It is usually 

 among or about heather here. " The eggs usually five ; two broods 

 are reared." Here there are usually four eggs, seldom five — very rarely 

 so ; only one brood. In the case of his Mountain Linnet or Twite 

 (Linota montium), he says that it is abundant in the northern part of 

 Scotland, &c, where it remains all the year. It becomes less common 

 as we proceed southward. No mention is made of its occurrence in 

 England. A reader of ' The Zoologist ' wrote to me from the North of 

 England to say that he had found this bird acting as foster-parent 

 there. It must be noted that Macgillivray does not refer to its occur- 

 rence there, and it will be very interesting to have this corroborated. 

 The mention of the nesting habits seems more akin to what I see of the 

 Meadow-Pipit here than that given of the latter bird, as regards 

 situation, at any rate. 



Egg-dejoositing of the Cuckoo in 1905. — I again find that the Moun- 

 tain or Hill or Heather Linnet, or "Lintie," as we call it here, but 

 which must be known as or associated with the Meadow-Pipit (Anthus 

 pratensis), is the only one which I see acting as foster-parent. I have 

 been made acquainted with two nests, in which the eggs were seen. In 

 the one case there were four eggs of the foster-parent and one of the 

 Cuckoo. In the other case there were also five eggs, two of which 

 were Cuckoo's. There were two young Pipits and one young Cuckoo, 

 leaving two addled eggs, that of the Cuckoo being a pretty large one. 

 They were left where Rats got hold of them. These increasing 

 quadrupeds (Brown Eats) had a representative who found the way to 

 the ejected young birds at the vicinity of the nest, and one night, as 

 two of my servants were taking home my horses, they saw a Brown 

 Eat with one of the young in its mouth. They gave chase, but the Eat 

 succeeded in getting into a hole. The young Cuckoo got on all right, 

 and evidently had reached the leaving of the nest stage. There 

 are very many young ones chirping about here just now, so that 

 there has been a prolific hatching season. — W. Wilson (Alford, Aber- 

 deen, N.B.). 



The Sounds produced by the Long-eared Owl (Asio otus). — As a 

 contribution to the discussion on the sounds uttered by the Long-earea 

 Owl, I append an extract from my note-book dated May 20th, 

 1903 :— 



"Last night about nine o'clock, when I was riding past a covert 

 at Lower Peover, I heard the discordant creaking note of a young 



