146 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
Mr. W. T. Pearce, one of the Hon. Secretaries of 
the Portsmouth Natural Science Society, informed us of 
a nest being found on our south-eastern coast in June, 
1883, when four eggs were taken, two from the nest, and 
two from the ground near it. 
Mr. Corbin recorded the dark variety of this species from 
the neighbourhood of Ringwood in May, 1887, and this 
variety has been obtained in this locality once or twice 
before.^ 
The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, writing to Kelsall in 1890, 
said that the species had nested in the New Forest the 
three preceding seasons. 
Mr. A. R. Brooke-Leeds kindly informs us that two 
specimens were shot on Mersley Down, near Arreton, in the 
Isle of Wight, in the autumn of 1888, and Mr. Wadham 
records a male shot at Chale on April 30th, 1891. 
The Earl of Malmesbury's collection contains an 
example procured on the estate in 1892. 
In 1893, Mr. Corbin knew of a nest in the Forest from 
which the female reared the brood after the male was 
killed.2 
In the following year again two or three nests were 
known to Mr. Corbin. " One pair," he says, " brought 
off a brood of three, which were seen from time to time 
frequenting the place of their birth — a low, somewhat damp 
situation, covered with coarse grass and other herbage, 
amongst which Osmunda regalis grew tallest, with here 
and there a few scattered birches of a stunted growth, the 
whole situation being overhung by a noble oakwood 
crowning the distant hill .... Another pair frequented 
a situation a few miles further down the valley, but 
Zoologist." September, 1887. Zoologist." November, 1893. 
