( 397 ) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



AYES. 



The Whinchat at Wilsden. — Pratincola rubetra is not nearly so 

 numerous as it was in the sixties in this district. Its scarcity, how- 

 ever, has been most marked within this last decade. Whether this 

 may be due to natural or artificial or to both causes it would be 

 difficult to say. The almost total disappearance of whin-covers from 

 this neighbourhood may be one contributory, but cannot be the sole 

 determining factor in the problem, since it is by no means confined 

 to such places, but used to be quite at home nesting in our meadows, 

 and next to the Titlark was the nest in which the Cuckoo used to 

 deposit its egg ; but I never once found the egg of the Cuckoo in the 

 nest of this species that resembled the egg of the fosterer in the least 

 degree, not even the type which approaches that of a Pied Wagtail. 

 My only wish is that in the future it may yet return to our district in 

 greater numbers to breed on our heathy wastes. Its well-known 

 call-notes amid such associations, even now, awaken many pleasant 

 memories. — E. P. Butterfield (Wilsden). 



Marsh- Warbler in Bucks. — Two years ago I observed the nesting of 

 the Marsh-Warbler at Thorpe, in Surrey, and recorded the same (Zool. 

 1908, p. 137), it being the first known instance of Acrocephalus palustris 

 breeding in the county. Two nests were then found, the first with 

 four eggs on June 14th, and a second nest on the 25th, also with four 

 eggs. Last year I spent considerable time throughout the summer 

 in trying to rediscover the birds around the same place, but was not 

 successful, and I came to the conclusion that their occurrence was 

 merely accidental. I was on the river on June 14th this year, and 

 went ashore to inspect a very dense nettle-bed not very far away from 

 the historic Magna Charta Island. Immediately on landing I found 

 a Reed- Warbler's nest in an osier along the river front, which con- 

 tained two eggs and one Cuckoo's. In proceeding to make my way 

 through the tall dense nettles, I came suddenly upon the nest and 

 two well-marked eggs of tne Marsh-Warbler, and here also there was 

 a Cuckoo's egg, though of a different type to the one I had just 



