3oo 
Field Notes. 
past laying fertile eggs/ in all probability the birds which are 
now encroaching on onr cliffs are outcasts, or at least are 
crushed out from the St . Kildan area.-v-J . A . Sidney Stendall, 
M.B.O.U. 
Birds in immature plumage first frequented the Yorkshire 
cliffs, and it is probable that it is these birds which upon 
reaching maturity have nested there. — R.F. 
Californian Quail in Salop. — A specimen of the lovely 
little Californian quail, Lophortyx calif 'ornica was shot on May 
12th in the neighbourhood of Bridgnorth, Salop, by Mr. 
Meredith, of Wooton, who killed it near his house. It was a 
female, in very good condition, and showing no sign whatever 
of having escaped from captivity ; yet by what natural 
means could it have reached this country? Possibly some 
of your readers may know if anybody has tried to introduce 
this quail? Mr. Kinnear, of the British Museum (Natural 
History) kindly identified the specimen. — Frances Pitt. 
The fact has been recorded that several of these birds were 
liberated in the neighbourhood and, no doubt, this example 
was one of them. The Wild Birds Protection Acts are 
evidently not observed in this district. — R.F. 
Cuckoo s Egg in Nest of Hedge Sparrow. — On the 
27th May, two boys took me to the nest of a Hedge Sparrow 
containing three eggs, out of which a Cuckoo's egg had been 
taken a few days previously. The egg was of the type usually 
laid by the Cuckoo in this district. During the last fifty 
years I have known of only three instances of the Cuckoo’s 
egg having been found in this neighbourhood in the nest of 
the above species. One of the Cuckoo’s eggs I found in the 
nest of the Hedge Sparrow in early July, 1915, on the edge 
of Cottingley Wood, was of the blue variety, one of the very 
few eggs of this kind which have been found in Britain. This 
I gave to my son Rosse for the Keighley Museum. — E. P. 
Butterfield. 
It is not unusual to find Cuckoo’s eggs in Hedge Sparrows’ 
nests. Hardly a year passes without my finding one. One 
season I came across three instances at Tanfield ; in this case 
I considered they had been laid by one bird with a special 
liking for the Hedge Sparrow as a fosterer. — R.F. 
— : o : — 
MAMMALS. 
Nests of Long -tailed Field Mouse. — This spring I saw 
two charming nests of the Long -tailed Field Mouse, built 
amongst the rockery plants in a friend’s garden. One was 
made entirely of the yellow blossoms of polyanthus, and the 
other of the purple blossoms of arburetum. My friend 
afterwards found several more nests constructed in a similar 
manner. — R. Fortune. 
Naturalist 
