196 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MA MM ALIA. 

 Common Shrew in Islay. — In his " Notes on the Mammals of 

 Islay," published in ' The Zoologist ' (ante, p. 113), Mr. Harold Eussell 

 records the capture of the Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) there in 

 1909, under the impression that the species has not previously been 

 identified from the island. Perhaps, therefore, I may be allowed to 

 draw attention to my record in the ' Annals of Scottish Natural 

 History ' for April, 1905 (p. 116) of one caught in Islay the previous 

 year, which has escaped Mr. Russell's notice. — William Evans 

 (Morningside Park, Edinburgh). 



AVE S. 

 Nesting of the Wren. — Mr. S. G. Cummings's instance of a Wren's 

 nest which was built in March, left unlined, and not containing eggs 

 until June (ante, p. 159), reminds me of a very similar experience here 

 two years ago. In the middle of April a Wren was watched busily 

 constructing a nest under the roots of a tree overhanging the bank of 

 a burn. A month later (May 11th) a bird was flushed from this nest, 

 which was found to contain an incomplete clutch of eggs. What 

 interested me particularly in this case, however, was that the builder 

 was a male, and the nest, when left in April, was a typical " cock's 

 nest." The bird's sex was sufficiently attested by the frequent merry 

 song with which he beguiled his labours. Was Mr. Cummings's nest 

 also built by a male bird? To my mind it has never been satis- 

 factorily shown that the purpose of the "cock's nests" is to afford 

 roosting quarters for the grown-up young, although that is no doubt 

 frequently the result. Sometimes the original nursery continues to 

 be used as a dormitory after the nesting season is long over, as was 

 the case in an instance last year, when a nest in which a family was 

 reared in late July was still occupied nightly by several birds up to 

 the end of November, and perhaps later. — S. E. Bbock (Kirkliston, 

 West Lothian). 



Avocets in Norfolk. — The three Avocets which were mentioned as 

 having been seen on Breydon mud-flats by the watcher there on 

 July 8th, 1909 (ante, p. 130), probably went to Blakeney — which is 

 seventeen miles distant by the shore — when driven off by the high 

 tide, for three were seen at that place on the same day, as I learn 



