NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
97 
the place of the old one ; this nest has since been utilised as a roosting-place. 
The difference between the two nests is wonderfully marked, each being, as 
I have shown, built for a different purpose. Two other roosting-nests have been 
made in the garden : in one case, at least, the structure was solely the work of 
one bird and was built with astonishing rapidity ; on one occasion the bird brought 
the materials and fitted them into the nest twelve times in five minutes. As fai 
as I know the egg-nest has not as yet been built. 
A. C. Mackik. 
Appearance of Migrants. — In accepting statements relating to the early 
appearances of the spring migrants, we can hardly, I think, be too careful. 
A correspondent writes telling me that he heard the cuckoo during last 
March. Another informs me he had both seen and heard the nightingale in his 
own garden in Hampstead; while another, also living in Hampstead, says they 
get no sleep in summer-time for nightingales, which in numbers sing so loudly 
(which I conclude to be song-thrushes) in his garden. Yet, all this notwith- 
standing, information relating to the early arrivals of migratory birds was last 
spring, in some papers, not only solicited, but accepted as genuine facts for publi- 
cation in book form. 
41, Heath Street, Hamfisfead, N. /K, James E. Whiting. 
April"], 1902. 
Shoveller Ducks. — A friend of mine saw a couple of shoveller ducks 
yesterday (April 3) get up from the River Colne, near U.xbridge, he was quite 
close to them, and could see the long bill with the edges much dilated. 
I do not know if these birds have been seen in this neighbourhood, and should 
like to have information on the subject. 
Moorcroft, Hillingdon, Middlesex. C. J. Maurice. 
P.S. — On April 2 I heard the chiff-chaff, and only the same day I saw a 
hawfinch in our garden. I have seen one every year, but it does not stop there. 
On April 7 I saw two swallows near Old Windsor, by tbe river. 
Harbouring Little Birds. — I am curious to know whether any of your 
correspondents have had a similar experience to mine this winter. There is, 
on the top of a wooded hill in my grounds, a veiy quaint old garden, known as 
the Ard Glas. (or Blue-Garden), walled round and accessible by a locked door 
and range of stone steps. This lovely and lonely spot is full of very large rhodo- 
dendrons of the Ponticum and other common old kinds, growing in this favour- 
able climate to an immense size, and flowering hitherto every year in huge 
masses of bloom. This spring, however, in climbing up for the first time to the 
garden after the long snow and hard weather, my consternation was great to find 
that about a dozen or more of these grand rhodos. were practically dead. Scarcely 
a leaf remained on them, and such as still existed were white, as if dipped in 
whitewash. At the bottom of the trees were broken sticks and such masses of 
ill-smelling stuff as to suggest a very dirty and ill-kept fowl-house. There was 
nothing to be done but to cut down about ten of the beautiful trees and light a 
fire to purify the ground. Whether more trees, partially injured, will die, or 
whether the old roots will start afresh, remains to be seen. The explanation of 
the ruin of the trees is that enormous flocks of little birds were seen, night after 
night, while the snow lasted, to fly up towards the Ard Glas., obviously to roost 
there in the admirable shelter it supplied. Whether they were starlings or field- 
fares, or other birds, my informants who saw them could not tell. They must 
have literally perched in crowds on the rhodos. every night for weeks, to produce 
such a state of affairs as I witnessed. Poor little birdies ! They were very’ 
sagacious ! The whole wood (I need hardly say) is closed to “ sport,” and the 
crows and the rooks build their nests on the grand old trees with perfect security. 
So, within the double safety of the walls of the Ard Glas., entered by nobody for 
weeks together, and among the thick foliage of the twenty-feet high rhododen- 
drons, they had an ideal bedroom for cold weather. I am very much vexed to 
lose my rhodos. , but I forgive my little uninvited guests. Has any one else had 
a similar loss this spring ? 
Hengwrt, Dolgelly. 
Frances Power Cobb. 
