314 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
boxes, the nests in both cases being made entirely of the bark of the 
Scotch fir, in which the eggs were buried. Of Tree-Sparrows we had 
seven or eight nests, and House-Sparrows, not content with occupy- 
ing three or four boxes intended for more respectable tenants, spoiled 
our only House-Martin’s nest. That the Starlings here only rear one 
brood in a season is pretty certain, as so many breed in our boxes that 
we have ample means of observing their ways. A Tawny Owl laid 
three eggs in an old cask and hatched them all; two young birds got 
safely away, and the third disappeared—how, I know not, as it was 
too small to have got out, and a human robber would have cleared off 
the whole brood. Another pair nested in the church-tower again, 
and hatched two out of three eggs; this pair of owlets also got away © 
safely after one had got out of the nest and been replaced, while the 
third egg, which contained a dead young bird nearly hatched, now 
represents the species in the type-collection of eggs in the Ipswich 
Museum. Mr. Oliver Pike was staying with us while the hen was 
sitting, and successfully ‘shot’ her as she flew from her nest with a 
cinematograph camera ; we afterwards went up the tower, where he 
got a fine picture of the nest and eggs by magnesium light. Before 
we finished operations the old bird came back, but just too late to get 
a photograph of her. On one occasion I found no fewer than five 
rats around the nest, none of which could have been dead for more 
thana day. No bird-music gives me more genuine pleasure than that 
of the Tawny Owl, whether it be the squealing of the owlets in the 
dense foliage of midsummer or the far-reaching shout of the old birds 
on a frosty winter night. Unfortunately, as I am one of the most 
unmusical of mortals, the pleasure of comparing the notes of our Owls 
is denied to me. A reference to Gilbert White’s tenth letter to his 
correspondent Barrington, in which he describes the records of a 
neighbour “said to have a nice ear,’ will show that in the notes of 
Owls and Cuckoos there is an interesting, if not a new, sphere of 
observation for musical naturalists.—JuLian G. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, 
Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk). 
Erratum.—‘ Zoologist,’ 1908, page 131, line 27, for “Southwold” 
read ‘‘Sudbourne.”—J. H. Gurney (Keswick Hall, Norwich). 
