58 
IN SHERWOOD FOREST 
Mar., 1889. 
considerable numbers (while these notes were in progress I 
heard of five forming part of the bag made in the middle 
beat one November day), but in Harlow very few are ever 
found, albeit only a road separates the two woods. The 
hollies which still survive, are utilised by another and very 
different bird, which builds its nest in them, viz., the Black¬ 
cap, whose clear sweet notes may often be heard there in 
May. At the extremities of the branches, among the dark 
green prickly leaves, it forms its nest, which doubtless often 
escapes observation from its position. It is easiest to see the 
nests by creeping under the tree and taking observations from 
inside. I have seen the Blackcap’s nest in a similar situation 
in Berkshire, and in one such found a clutch of the beautiful 
salmon-pink variety of the eggs. 
The Lesser Redpole, best known as a winter visitor to the 
south, is not uncommon on the outskirts of the woods, where 
it forms the beautiful, warm, cup-shaped nest, destined to 
hold that clutch of eggs so entirely Fringilline in character, 
and yet so small—something like miniature Linnets’ but with 
a bluer ground colour. The naturalist who has watched them 
in winter restlessly flitting about the heads of the alders along 
the banks of the half-frozen streams, or clinging to the 
slender leafless twigs of the birches in copse and shrubbery, 
gladly renews his acquaintance with these tiny linnets in their 
summer haunts. The birches which, with the alders, 
furnished their favourite food in winter, still possess 
attractions for them, and on some branchlet gently swayed 
by the breeze, amid the delicate waving green leaves of this 
most elegant tree, the cock Redpole loves to sit and sing his 
sweet twittering strain, Sometimes, too, a pair of Red-legged 
Partridges are detected as they run among the dead bracken 
and heather in the thin open wood. These birds have become 
numerous of late years, and seem to prefer the edges of woods, 
rough ground generally, and the open, heathery, forest land, 
to the cultivated fields. But they certainly have not inter¬ 
fered with the increase of the Grey Partridge. The cultivated 
land, with its light sandy soil and extensive turnip and seed- 
grass fields, which lies around and encroaches upon the 
remnants of the once great Sherwood, cau almost vie with the 
best parts of Norfolk in the production of “ birds.” Late in 
May, when leaning at evening over the gate of one of the 
great seed-fields, which, in cold springs, are bitten rather 
bare by the sheep, I have counted six or seven breeding pairs 
feeding out on the short turf, within a short distance of one 
another ; and in walking across my friend’s paddock we have 
put up as many as half-a-dozen pairs. 
(To be continued,) 
