Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/235

Rh I have known the eggs taken by the 9th of that month. They have three or four very favourite places for nesting in. By a waterfall, when the nest, which is large, bulky, and roofed over like a Wren's, is placed in a crevice of the rocks or stones, and though easily seen, generally very inaccessible; in a culvert or tunnel, when it is placed in a hole in the wall or roof; under a bridge, in a hole of the arch, and often near the water; and under an overhanging bank, when, from its position and build, it much resembles that of the Common Wren. It is generally composed of moss and leaves outside, and lined with finer material in the shape of bents and grass; the roof generally overhangs the entrance, which is difficult to see unless you stoop down. The nest is large and bulky; the eggs five, six, and sometimes seven in number, white and pointed. When built by a waterfall the bird seems soon aware of your approach, and is very likely gone before you can catch sight of her. When built in a culvert or tunnel, which I have found the favourite place, they will sit very closely. I remember noticing a pair of these birds flying about a rather large drain, about four feet high and four wide, which conveyed a small streamlet under a road into the river. Feeling sure the nest must be iu this drain, I asked a friend who was with me to search. He did so, but in vain. On returning some hours afterwards to the same spot there was the bird again; so nothing remained but to have another search. In I went, and crawling up the small tunnel on hands and knees, I groped about in the side-walls, but without success; at length, putting my hand up to the roof, which was made by large pieces of slate laid across, I discovered a crevice between two slates, into which I could just squeeze my fingers, and there sure enough was the nest with three eggs in it. My brother came the following year to look, and there was a nest in the same place with the old bird in it. He caught her, and let her go; there were two eggs, which he left in the nest. Coming some days after, aud feeling sure she would forsake her nest, he was surprised, on getting to the nest, to observe the bird fly off, and, apparently not at all alarmed, settle within two yards of him on a stone. The nest contained five eggs, which were allowed to hatch. I doubt not that the same birds or their descendants occupy the same snug and secure home every season, and rear one or perhaps two broods undisturbed. The flight of these birds is rapid and generally near the water. I have seen them, in August, get up from very small mountain streams on the moors iu Scotland. They have a short, melodious and rather powerful song. Their cry of alarm is a short, shrill pipe, rather like that of the Kingfisher's. I never saw one settle on a tree or laud, but generally on stones and rocks in the river.— (The Woodlands, Burton-on-Trent).

—Mr. Tomlinson is very accurate in his account of the breeding habits of this bird. They are, as he observes,