THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



93 



Satyrus megcera. — You give as a species becoming restricted. Our 

 experience this year tends to prove quite the opposite, I have never taken it 

 except in one lane at West Kirby, where it was very common, until this year 

 when it turned up all over West Kirby, and also sparingly on the Wallasey 

 and Crosby sandhills, where, although I have worked for several years, I 

 never saw a specimen before. 



Satyrus cegeria, — This we read of as common everywhere. One specimen 

 which I took on the wall of our garden, which is near the centre of the city, 

 in 1878, is the only one I have seen anywhere near Liverpool. 



Now, with the exception of the latter, in Mr. C. S. Gregson's local list 

 of 1858, all I have mentioned were plentiful. Of Vanessa cardui, he says 

 " plentiful where its food plant abounds ; V. atalanta plentiful on nettles ; 

 Kio abundant on nettles; S. megcera in lanes everywhere; and S. cegeria 

 has been taken on the high road from Bromborough to Eastham. 



We can well understand that as a town increases, the smoke and dirt kill 

 vegetation, and consequently drive away insects, to which cleanliness, 

 good food, and sunshine are essential, but we cannot so readily explain the 

 abundance of V. cardui and atalanta at certain seasons, nor yet the spread- 

 ing of S. megcera over a district which one would naturally expect it 

 to be dying out. 



Liverpool, nth March 1885. 



THE BITTERN NESTING IN ENGLAND. 



By W. H. BATH, Sutton Park. 

 Although a rare occasional visitor, the Bittern had never been known to 

 breed in these parts until last year, when I had the fortune to discover its 

 nest. The haunt of this bird was in a thick wooded morass, at the head of 

 one of our largest pools, which is impossible for anyone to penetrate, except 

 after an absence of rain for several weeks. During some fine weather in 

 June, last year, I was engaged in exploring this bog in search of the eggs of 

 water birds. I entered from the land side, and after some little time and care 

 spent in springing from one clump of reeds to another, in order to evade the 

 water, in doing which I was obliged to guide myself with the branches of trees, 

 I managed to arrive close to the water's edge. Here it was, about a yard from 

 the pool, that I suddenly came upon the nest of this bird. It was difficult to 

 discern at first sight, as it was almost entirely obscured from view by the 

 quantity of vegetation which grew around it. It was built very high up out 

 of the water, on a mass of reeds, in order to protect it, I suppose, from 

 a sudden rising of the water, to which these bogs are very liable. It was 



