Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/479

Rh 'Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society,' wherein it is recorded that about 1819 a man named Camplin climbed a gibbet in the parish of Wereham, Norfolk, upon which had been executed a person named Bennett, the trial taking place at Thetford. In the head of the skeleton a Blue Tit had built its nest, and the terrified family of nine or ten flew out on being disturbed. Another peculiar instance occurred this year at Stow Bedon Station, as related to me by the station-master. Two nests of the Blue Titmouse were there built in the point-box, one of them containing six and the other two eggs—the nests being built by different birds. Both nests were lined with feathers which the station-master's wife had turned out of a pillow. Despite the fact that the position of the nests was changed each time the points were moved, and that eight or nine persons were often observing this curiosity at one time, the six eggs were safely hatched and the young fledged—the other nest being deserted.

For many years past there has been a Great Tit's nest in a pump in the garden at Great Fakenham Rectory, which is always undisturbed by the owner—an ardent naturalist. In Gallow's Pits, Thetford, criminals were formerly interred after execution by the manorial or episcopal courts which could then enforce the penalty of death; now the pits are used as receptacles for rubbish. Amongst the miscellaneous collection of kettles to be found there, a Robin generally builds its nest year by year. Starlings notoriously nest in queer places. In a railway bridge at Santon, Norfolk, six bricks were missing, three on each side. Of the six holes, five were tenanted this year by Starlings. In the crotch of a beech tree in a plantation at Kilverstone, Norfolk, a piece of oak-bark had become fixed about three feet from the ground. Upon this bark a Nightjar had deposited its two eggs, in preference to the bare earth. A somewhat similar case occurred this year on Peddar's Way, East Wretham. A piece of the outer bark of a pine tree had been blown into the middle of a hawthorn bush, the concave side being uppermost. In this a Blackbird's nest had been built, the rim of the nest being level on either side with the edge of the bark. A short distance away was a big stack of fallen pines—relics of the great gale of 1895. The heart of one of these trees had rotted, and in the cavity thus formed was a Redstart's nest containing three eggs. In 1893 one of these