102 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



us to search for their nest in a large patch of ling on one of the 

 headlands where there were scattered remains of House- Sparrows, 

 a Pied Wagtail, and several Sky-Larks. On the verge of the 

 cliff itself, overhung by ling, was an old Carrion-Crow's nest, and 

 in it two young Merlins with rectrices just showing, and two 

 addled eggs. The Crow's nest, which was much flattened, looked 

 as though it had been occupied by the Merlins in previous years. 

 These birds frequently occupy the same nesting- site year after 

 year. Kestrels commonly lay in disused Crow's nests, but their 

 appropriation by Merlins is very unusual — on the Anglesea coast, 

 at any rate. 



One evening from the high road near Bull Bay village we 

 heard, in a field of mowing grass, a curious monosyllabic note, 

 "eek" or " peek," not unlike a certain note uttered by the Lap- 

 wing when on the ground in the pairing season, but louder. The 

 noise continued, and the grass moved at the place whence the 

 sound came. When we reached the spot, a few yards distant 

 from the road, a Corn-Crake rose, and flew with dependent legs 

 low above the grass, into which it dropped a few yards away. 

 The bird left a nest with twelve eg-gs — one of which was broken — 



DO 



and appearances suggested that a Eat or some other animal had 

 been in the act of looting the nest when we heard the alarm- 

 note. If such was the case the Corn-Crake had, judging from 

 the commotion we had seen in the grass, resisted the attack by 

 active measures in addition to cries of alarm. The nest was a 

 slight mat of grass-stems and fibres, which had evidently been 

 gathered green. 



Nesting Wheatears are singularly rare on the North Anglesea 

 coast ; any that attempt to breed are probably killed sooner or 

 later by Merlins. We saw one old bird with a brood of young on 

 the cliffs near Amlwch. At Freshwater Bay, near Point Lynas, 

 we flushed a Grasshopper-Warbler, our attention being called to 

 it by the thin alarm-note, " tchick, tchick," a cry quite as diffi- 

 cult to locate as is the "song." 



On June 22nd we revisited a nesting-place of the Peregrine 

 on the south-west coast. The falcon greeted us with angry 

 clamour when we were some three hundred yards from the 

 precipitous cliff where the eyrie is. She circled over the cliffs 

 and bay for more than an hour without alighting, barking 



