BIRDS. 
139 
" The height of the nest was about 2800 feet by my 
aneroid, and as the highest summit of the mountain is 
over 3200 feet high, I think tlie height shown by the 
aneroid was correct. 
" I shall secure the nest when the birds have quite for- 
saken it. I am sure you would have enjoyed seeing the 
birds flying about and feeding the young. I can only 
form a faint notion of the pleasure it would have given you. 
We saw several other cock-birds flying about, and there 
can be little doubt that there is a little colony of them 
among the fallen blocks which bestrew the hill." 
The following notes, drawn up at our request specially 
for this fauna by Mr. Hinxman, will also, we are certain, 
be read with interest; and the suggestive remarks at the 
conclusion will at all events aid in directing attention 
to an interesting branch of observation, whether any direct 
importance in this special instance can be attached or not. 
We cannot, however, ignore facts of ahnost annual observa- 
tion pointing to the process of increase in many species, and 
the occupation of new nesting sites, after repeated visits of 
birds merely resting there in previous years.^ 
' The following is can instance of this which was given during the discussion 
by Mr. Wilson, Terpersie, Alford, a keen and observant botanist. He said, 
" A reason for thinking that such rare birds as the snow-bunting should be 
nesting on our mountains was that they were becoming more numerous. A 
variety of gull, yellow-billed, rested on the Correen Hills, near Alford. They 
came season after season, and now they are beginning to nest there, and were 
appearing north and south of the district, which indicated increase of mimbers." 
Mr. Wilson also instanced plants that were rare or absent in his district some 
seventeen or eighteen years ago as " now found in abundance," and we ourselves 
can instance many natural extensions of range of species traceable to an increase 
of improved areas. 
