ORNITHOLOGY OF OXFORDSHIRE. 449 



at Tadmarton. The nests, chiefly lined with large (often white) 

 feathers of the domestic hen, contained incubated eggs or young. 

 The old man (Ed. Preedy), who has worked many years in the 

 pit, and takes an interest in the birds, says they come there the 

 end of April, but not all at once, and some stay until the end of 

 September, but most of them go earlier. 



20th. — Mr. Warriner, of The Grove, writes : " The floods are 

 coming out in the hay-meadows for the fifth time this summer." 



25th. — Eay's Wagtail young on wing ; they call like the old 

 birds, and their stumpy tails wag quickly. 



26th. — Warm weather at last. Natterer's Bat flew in at a 

 window. 



28th. — A pair of Eed-backed Shrikes have bred this year in 

 the old locality, "Milton lane close." 



29th.— I went to Bampton, but found the towing-path of the 

 Isis impassable, as water was running over it in places. A very 

 strong stream running. The country in this low-lying district 

 was in a deplorable condition. Many fields were still covered 

 with water, others with slime left by the floods, and then baked 

 by the sun into a dirty white crust. These fields (all hay-grass) 

 cannot, of course, be mown, and will probably be ruined for 

 years. The biggest flood was caused by the great three days' 

 rain between the 13th and 16th inst. There were seas of hay- 

 grass along the river, all of which ought to have been cut, and 

 much of which was hopelessly damaged. The luxuriant herbage 

 on and inside the raised banks of the river was all covered with 

 slime, and all nests must have been destroyed. It is a great 

 breeding-place of Beed-Buntings, and many Moorhens and Dab- 

 chicks nest among the rushes in the river; but I saw few other 

 birds. The hedges and ditches on each side the raised road between 

 Bampton and Tadpole Bridge were very lush, and seemed full of 

 Sedge-Warblers and other small birds. Larks were numerous 

 in the fields there, and came to dust themselves on the raised 

 marsh road. The land is so flat there that a great extent of 

 ground had been flooded ; and the driver of the omnibus which 

 runs between Bampton station and village told me that the water 

 on the road was up to his horse's collar, and it was dangerous to 

 get about the country for a day or two. I spent a delightful time 

 watching an adult Black Tern feeding over the river. Time after 



