NOTES AND QUERIES. 115 



no misunderstanding ; they did just what the old bird wanted them 

 to do, and she was fully conscious that for their very existence, either 

 for food or to escape danger, they were to cross the ditch. — Stanley 

 Lewis (Wells, Somerset). 



Leach's Petrel in Worcestershire. — On September 19th, 1914, Mr. 

 T. E. Doeg, of Evesham, sent me an example of Leach's Petrel 

 (Oceanodroma leucorrhoa), which had been picked up dead in a field 

 near that town the same morning. Mr. H. E. Forrest records one 

 (' British Birds,' vol. viii. p. 198) caught alive near Shrewsbury on 

 the previous day, which subsequently escaped, flying off down the 

 river ; it might not improbably have reached Evesham by the 

 following day and be identical with the one I have. — Thomas Ground 

 (Moseley, Birmingham). 



Sense of Direction in Birds. — Dr. Dewar's paper on "The Sense 

 of Direction" brings us "no forader." How does he explain the 

 performance of the young Cuckoo, which, deserted by its parents in 

 England, is yet capable of following the old birds to their winter 

 quarters in Africa ? It never made the voyage before, and its parents, 

 which have left the country weeks, sometimes months, previously 

 cannot act as guides. The Polynesian Cuckoo, inhabiting the 

 Kermadec Islands, makes two voyages of nearly one thousand miles 

 each, annually, to New Zealand over the enormous waste of waters 

 in the Pacific, for the purpose of breeding. How do the young find 

 their way back over the ocean ? Can Dr. Dewar suggest any solution 

 of this problem ? — Eichaed M. Baeeington (Eassaroe, Bray). 



Curious Nesting-places of the Mistle-Thrush ; Distribution of 

 Thrushes in Winter. — Eeferring to the ' Transactions of the Paisley 

 Naturalists' Society,' a notice of which appears in the 'Zoologist' 

 (ante, p. 79), a curious nesting-site is recorded of the Mistle-Thrush, 

 viz. on the tops of tombstones. This reminds me of another curious 

 nesting-place of this species which Mr. Eorrest, author of the ' Birds 

 of Shropshire,' along with my son Rosse and others, found in a 

 quarry on the slope of one of the mountains in North Wales. In 

 Airedale this species scarcely ever builds its nest except in trees at 

 altitudes varying from four to twenty feet, but in the neighbouring 

 valley of the Wharfe I have twice found it built in stone walls, and 

 in a district which was within easy distance of much more apparently 

 natural nesting sites. Eeferring to the distribution of our indigenous 

 Thrushes in the winter season, the Blackbird is by far the most 

 persistent, similar to what obtains in the Paisley district, but the 

 majority of these are male birds. The separation of the sexes, 



