35S THE ZOOLOGIST. 



in the neighbourhood, which is quite exceptional in the economy of the 

 species. For a number of years we have been accustomed to provide 

 food for birds in our garden, but this species is usually very limited in 

 its bill of fare — much more so than the Blackbird — and will not eat 

 bread except when pressed with hunger. The Nightjar has bred here 

 this season more commonly than in any former year. One of our 

 gamekeepers showed me a nest with four eggs, evidently the produce 

 of two females, as the eggs were in pairs, two being much smaller and 

 quite different in shape from the others, but whether introduced by 

 human agency will ever remain a mystery. It is with some satisfaction 

 that we have to record again the nesting of the Hawfinch, and, what 

 is still more gratifying, that more than one brood has been brought off. 

 We were asked to go some distance to identify a strange bird which had 

 been picked up wounded beneath the telegraph-wires, and found it to 

 be this species, which the owner gave me. In a few days it became 

 quite tame, as it was allowed free use of a room for an hour or two 

 each day, and would come out of the cage and eat hazel nuts, of which 

 it was very fond, at my feet. It was fonder of these nuts than even 

 green peas, and had a curious method of opening the pods of the latter. 

 After about a fortnight of "durance vile" it was given its freedom 

 in the garden, and allowed itself to be caught once or twice, but in a 

 very short time it rose almost perpendicularly into an ash tree at the 

 bottom of the garden, after which it made an escape on vigorous wings 

 to a sycamore tree at some distance. In a garden on the edge of 

 Bingley Wood, Cuckoos were very abundant this last spring, feeding 

 upon the larva3 of the gooseberry moth. I had a very near view from 

 the kitchen, and for some time they must have fed almost exclusively 

 on this food, as they were in the garden from early morning ' ; to dewy 

 eve," if any dew can be said to have been deposited here this year. A 

 Hedge- Sparrow was laying its eggs in a nest built in a whin a few 

 yards away from this garden, and we were curious to note whether one 

 or more of the Cuckoos would deposit their egg in the nest in question, 

 but they did not avail themselves of this opportunity. We have never 

 known of an authentic instance of this sort in the immediate district 

 for fifty years. My son Bosse and I were walking on a heathy waste 

 near Bingley Wood when our attention was arrested by a Bay's Wag- 

 tail having food in its mouth. As we were certain of its having a nest 

 in the vicinity, we watched the female for some time without success. 

 We both thought, owing to its being the rendezvous of Cuckoos for 

 miles around, that possibly this species might have been selected as its 

 dupe ; so we determined to find the nest, and for this purpose we 



