On the Nestir.g of Cinclus Europaeus. 383 



The lapse of two years might suffice to obliterate the traces 

 of the injury. 



IV. On the Nesting of Cinclus Europaeus. By J. Duns, D.D., F.R.S.E., 

 New College, Edinburgh. 



As the nest now on the table is, so far as I am aware, 

 the only one of the kind which has been observed, I have 

 thought it might not be uninteresting to show it to the 

 Society. 



The nest is double, consisting of two compartments under 

 one roof, divided by a mutual partition. While the roof is 

 one, the depression in the middle preserves the usual rounded 

 appearance of the covering of the single nest over both 

 divisions. The nest was built in eight days. It consists of 

 hypnums, intermixed with the dried leaves and stalks of 

 slender grasses. The inside lining is formed of withered 

 beech leaves. This is the favourite lining. When beech 

 trees are not in the immediate neighbourhood of the nesting- 

 place. I have known this bird fly a considerable distance 

 to procure them. The withered leaves of the oak are some- 

 times used instead. 



In four days after the nest was finished, three eggs were 

 dropped ! the third on the 22d day of April. 



As the place in which it occurred is within gun-shot of a 

 public work, and as many boys frequent the locality, I was 

 led to remove it before the work of breeding was completed, 

 lest it should have been destroyed. The nest was taken 

 from the ledge of a weathered freestone rock, about five feet 

 above the surface of the Craivliill Bum, a stream which 

 drains the hills on the east of Torphichen, Linlithgowshire, 

 and joins the Avon about one hundred yards to the east of 

 the Avon Steel Work. Ten or twelve years ago, the place 

 was a favourite haunt of the kingfisher, which is now rarely 

 met with there, though the dipper, the sandpiper, Yarrel's 

 wagtail, and Kay's wagtail, are frequently seen. 



I ascertained, beyond all doubt, that the nest was the 

 work of one pair of birds. They began by covering the sur- 



