NOTES AND QUERIES. 39? 



sawit.it was just opposite where the parishes of Dowles and Bewdley 

 adjoin, which is also the boundary of the two counties. It seems 

 strange to find such an uncommon visitor resting on its migration at 

 such an unlikely spot, but a misty morning and the early hour may 

 have accounted for this. — J. Steele Elliott. 



Spotted Flycatcher Wintering in Oxfordshire. — 'Whilst staying in 

 Oxfordshire with the Eector of Waterstock, he informed me that a 

 Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola) spent the whole of last winter 

 in his garden. He saw it catching flies almost every morning on the 

 sill outside his study window (an upstairs room) throughout the 

 winter.— H. W. Eobinson, M.B.O.U., F.Z. S.Scot. (Caton, Lancaster). 



Rooks and Railways. — Has anyone noticed that Eooks have a 

 particular fondness for building as near as possible to a railway line ? 

 It struck me that I had noticed this when travelling about, and on 

 the last long journey I made, from Tiverton to London, one morning 

 this spring, I took careful note, and saw many groups of Eooks' nests 

 near the line, and only one or two on trees remote from it. Especi- 

 ally noticeable is the rookery at Eeading Station ; I also noticed 

 Eooks building in one wet wood in trees so low that the nests did 

 not seem higher than the roofs of the carriages. It is a common sight 

 to see Eooks sitting on telegraph-wires at stations, and at Gunnersbury, 

 S.W. London, last year I saw half a dozen foraging on the line. As 

 the train approached Westbourne Park station on the present occa- 

 sion I saw my last two Eooks on a wire above a wilderness of rails. 

 From my own experience, then, I should say Eooks particularly 

 liked the neighbourhood of the lines ; yet there is, I believe, an idea 

 that they do not, but this may be only when a line is newly con- 

 structed near a rookery ; the numerous colonies one can see on the 

 above journey are surely not all in process of desertion — it looked 

 quite the other way about. — F. Finn. 



Status of Lesser Whitethroat and Stonechat in North-West 

 Yorkshire. — A few days ago I happened to meet Mr. Sam Long- 

 bottom, of Bingley, who described the song of a bird which he 

 had heard near Saltaire on or about the first week in July last, 

 and I have no doubt but that it was a Lesser Whitethroat. I had 

 heard earlier in the year that this species had been heard in a 

 nursery in the neighbourhood of Saltaire, where it had probably bred ; 

 if so, it is a confirmation of my statement {ante, page 197) that this 

 species in this neighbourhood does not affect the thickest foliage for 



