NOTES AND QUERIES. 317 
I have not seen, but I suggest that this habit of carrying the nestlings 
under the wing for so long after they are hatched is an instinct im- 
planted to preserve the species—apparently a slow-breeding one— 
from the dangers attendant upon the large sheets of water they 


frequent being inhabited by large Pike, Trout, &c. I have known 
Pike of seventeen pounds taken in the reservoir in which these birds 
nested.—Wm. F’, Dewey (Carisbrooke, Finsbury Park, N.). 
Notes on Nest-Boxes.—Though the tenants of our nest-boxes this 
year have been numerous, there have been none of special interest or 
rarity. The list is: Robin (in an old water-can in ivy), Great Tit, 
Blue Tit (two or three of each), Nuthatch (one), Tree-Sparrow (many), 
House-Sparrow, Tawny Owl, and Stock-Dove. The box occupied by 
the Tawny Owls is simply an old half-dozen wine-case, placed in the 
fork of a beech, and kept in position by a heavy drain-brick on the lid. 
A Stock-Dove had two eggs on Feb. 28th, which is our earliest record 
of any eggs in a box, and last evening (July 21st) one flew out of the 
same box, which contained a new nest with two nearly fresh eggs. We 
