NOTES AND QUERIES. 29 



was in the year 1888. Here young in the nest in September may be 

 noted every year. I should like to ask if the Sand-Martin {Cotile 

 riparia) usually has late broods. There were young in a nest in Flam- 

 borough Cliffs last year on Sept. 2nd. — W. Gyngell (Scarborough). 



The Twite (Linota flavirostris). — It seems very strange to me that 

 we never see this bird on our neighbouring moors, which, well covered 

 with heather, might seem to be admirably suited to its habits. My 

 friends and myself, who are especially interested in birds, spend some 

 days every May in tramping over the moors where the Ring-Ouzel, 

 Golden Plover, and Curlew are thoroughly at home, but we never see 

 a Twite. — W. Gyngell (Scarborough). 



The Breeding Haunts of the Twite. — I have been greatly interested 

 by the correspondence called forth by my remarks on " The Cuckoo 

 and Twite " (Zool. 1905, p. 389). I would like also to thank the 

 correspondents who have written to me privately for their very inter- 

 esting communications. However, I cannot see any ground for the 

 surprise expressed by Mr. Parkin at my statement that the Twite 

 " breeds in most parts of the British Islands where moors, mountains, 

 and exposed heathy places are found, being by no means confined to 

 the northern parts." Mr. Parkin will find that practically the same 

 is stated in Seebohm's ' British Birds.' It does, indeed, seem probable 

 that the Twite is absent from Wales in the nesting season (Zool. 1902, 

 pp. 5, 6), but this will appear to be the exception which proves the rule 

 when we consider the wide distribution of this bird in Ireland, Scot- 

 land, and the North of England. In Ireland it is known to breed 

 regularly in at least twenty-one out of the thirty-two counties, includ- 

 ing practically all the counties bordering the coast, and there is reason 

 to believe that it breeds in several others where the fact has not been 

 definitely established. Indeed, in some of the most southern counties 

 — as, for instance, Waterford — it nests abundantly, and its nests have 

 been found even on the remote islands of Kerry. A point, however, 

 which escapes the notice of those whose observation of the breeding 

 habits of the Twite is confined to England, is its preference for the 

 neighbourhood of lofty coasts, especially those which are exposed to 

 the Atlantic. Hence it is much commoner on the western side of our 

 islands than on the eastern. As the bird is said to be especially 

 common on the islands off the coast of Scotland, the Hebrides, the 

 Orkneys, and Shetlands, and outside the British Islands is not known 

 to breed at all except in Norway, where it also chiefly frequents the 

 coasts and islands, we have here a possible explanation why it breeds 

 in the North of England as far south as Derbyshire, but does not breed 



