'206 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



as Curlews breeding on Bestmoor, a meadow of about seventy 

 acres in the Cherwell Valley. As I expected, they proved to be 

 Kedshanks. The nest, with eggs, was found by the tenant at 

 the end of April ; but as he could not be found to-day we did 

 not see it. It was described as " domed over " like a Magpie's. 

 This, no doubt, meant that the grasses were brought together 

 over the nest. We found the birds in the middle of the meadow, 

 and they flew close to us uttering the " toor-e-loor " sometimes, 

 but generally the " klip klip klip " of alarm, and we concluded 

 they had young out in the grass. Mr. Rose, who took great 

 interest in them, told me later that after the heavy rain of the 

 9th- 11th June, bringing out a flood, he thinks the birds brought 

 their young up the steep bank at the back of the moor and on 

 to arable land. The old birds mobbed him there, coming very 

 close and settling on a tree and a building. I believe the birds 

 were seen the previous year ; but no observations were made on 

 them. This is a welcome, but not unexpected, extension of the 

 breeding range of the Redshank in Oxon (vide ' Zoologist,' 1913, 

 p. 325). We saw in a small steep bank in a field bordering the 

 mill-tail a Kingfisher's nesting-hole. It was a place where earth 

 or clay had been dug and was about five feet high. We could 

 hear the young. The hole was about two feet deep and sloped 

 upwards, allowing the filth to drain off. It was made and 

 occupied last year. The birds always approach under a haw- 

 thorn bush at the edge of the mill-tail ; and on leaving the hole 

 always dive into the water. Mr. Rose thinks this is to wash 

 themselves. We found a Reed-Bunting's nest with five eggs in 

 a patch of flowering marsh marigold, with no other or higher 

 cover, in the middle of the moor. A Sand-Martin was breeding 

 in a drain-pipe let into a bridge carrying the road over the river ; 

 and a Wren had made a most conspicuous nest of brown dead 

 leaves in the side of a haystack. The reeds here have made a 

 heavy growth this year, the river banks having been uncleaned 

 for some time, and we noticed a good many Reed-Warblers. 



17th. — In a very long round in a car to-day into South 

 Oxfordshire and parts of Bucks, we only heard the Cuckoo once. 

 A fine bright day, and we stopped for lunch in the Chiltern 

 Woods. Swifts were noisy, numerous, and low down in Chinnor 

 village — a great place for them, I remember, more than thirty 



