ORNITHOLOGY OF OXFORDSHIRE. 415 



were substantially built of old stubble with some bits of saintfoin- 

 stems in one of them. The eggs looked fresh, and one egg which 

 I took was quite so. A nest on a ploughing, from which four 

 fresh eggs had been taken on the 5th, was hollowed out of a 

 lump of old weathered strawy manure. 



April 1st. — Hawfinch in holly-tree twice to-day. Hedges and 

 vegetation generally very backward. 



5th. — The first warm spring day, 55° in the shade. A Song- 

 Thrush's nest, which contained one egg on the 31st ult., to-day 

 held broken eggs and tail and other feathers of the bird. It is 

 wonderful what a number of these early nests are destroyed. 

 This one was well hidden in a young spruce several feet from the 

 ground. A Long-tailed Tit's nest, built in a thick fork in a 

 naked hedge, and very much exposed ; being covered with flat 

 silvery lichen, it looked just like a lump of this. It was not yet 

 lined. 



7th. — At Langley, a Mistle-Thrush's nest contained four eggs 

 already very " hard sat." These birds, as well as Song-Thrushes 

 and Blackbirds, when nesting in the little old covers of mixed 

 deciduous trees (the remains of the ancient forest of Wychwood), 

 make use of a great deal of bright green moss on the outside of 

 the nests ; some nests, indeed, are formed externally chiefly of 

 this material. The local name of the Mistle-Thrush in the 

 "Forest" district is " Seecher." 



8th. — Visited the ruins of Minster Lovell, on the banks of the 

 Windrush, and once included within the limits of the forest 

 (Skelton's 'Antiquities of Oxfordshire'). Part of the walls of 

 this grand ruin are still of great height, and others are clothed 

 with a heavy growth of ivy. It forms a most interesting 

 breeding station. Crowds of Jackdaws and Starlings breed 

 there, and the Stock-Doves, which I could hear " grunting" all 

 about, probably also nest there. The Barn-Owl has bred several 

 times (and this year again, as I heard later) in a hole high up in 

 one of the walls, and on one occasion the eggs of the Kestrel 

 were found. Close to the ruins there is a rookery, frequented 

 by the Tawny Owl. This year the latter bird, Mr. Calvert tells 

 me, bred on Potter's Hill Farm, not far away, in a hole in a tree 

 so low down that you looked down on the young birds when 

 standing on the ground. 



