Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/383

Rh any one else that I ever heard of. I am not going to reveal the secret, for I have had bitter experience of that sort of thing. I once knew of a pair, and told a man who I thought was above suspicion, but he promptly went and shot one of them, which taught me a lesson I have not forgotten. Suffice it to say that under certain conditions the bird will sulk, and nothing will induce her to leave the nest; and in one instance on being touched by mistake, she feigned death, and allowed herself to be handled as if dead—a quivering of the eyelid was all that showed she was shamming. They are most prolific little birds, and I have known thirty eggs taken from one pair. I very much deprecate this sort of thing, but there are times when in pursuit of knowledge and experience, especially if one has to rely upon the good offices and information originally imparted by another, when all one can do is to sit tight. I may say that I see no harm in taking a clutch of eggs whatever, but after that I believe in allowing the birds to lay again, which they always do, and rear their young in safety. I found a nest of Locustella nævia on May 30th, containing five fresh eggs. The nest was in a big tussock of Aira cæpitosa (common turfy hair-grass), in the middle of a big osier-bed, or willow garth as it is called in the county, and was made of a foundation of willow-leaves, &c, and coarse grass, a very little moss, and lined with finer grass—a bulky nest. All the Grasshopper Warblers, when driven off their nests in thick cover, run along the ground a few yards, for all the world like a Mouse; then fly up on to some twig, reed, &c, for a few moments; and afterwards drop down into the thick grass.

I have examined a large number of Swifts' nests this year, and so far from their being small and loose structures, they have been most bulky, and in every instance they contained fresh flowers with long stalks of the buttercup. Now I have found fresh flowers of the buttercup in the nest of our old friend "Passer damnabilis;" and I have often wondered whether the Swifts occasionally take possession of these nests and agglutinate them together with their salivary secretion. But I have found Swifts' nests still containing fresh buttercups, with no Sparrows near, so that the Swifts must have taken them there themselves, though I never saw, or met with anyone who had seen them doing so. With all due deference to so excellent an authority