Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/385

Rh were, I detected through my glass three pairs of Tufted Ducks, and on looking over a small island I found two nests, each containing ten eggs completely covered up with down. The other Ducks which I have found breeding this season in a wild state in various parts of the county are the Mallard, Teal, Shoveller, and Pochard.

Nightjars have been common. I took a friend to obtain a photograph of two eggs in situ that I had found on a moorside. The hen harmonized so beautifully with the dead bracken and bare ground that it was some time before I could make him see her. After photographing the eggs he fastened green cloth over the camera, tied a thread to the shutter, and then hid behind a large stone about twenty yards away. Though an hour was allowed she failed to come back, so we pinned portions of the bracken, which was growing all round, on to the green cloth, and then hid up again, when, after waiting about twenty minutes, on she came. Allowing a few minutes for her to settle, my friend took his shot, and an excellent one it has turned out.

This same friend told me of a prolific nest. Four years ago he found a Carrion Crow's nest; the next year it was tenanted by a Long-eared Owl, very abundant in the county; last year a Sparrowhawk took possession, and this year a Kestrel.

Everybody heard with the greatest regret of the recent shooting of an Osprey near Beverley—audi alteram partem. Some time ago, on the gentleman's estate I have before mentioned as being such a paradise for birds, an Osprey appeared and remained for six weeks; when, although it levied heavy toll on the big Trout in the lake, it was a welcome visitor, and allowed to pursue its own habits. Would that there were more such naturalists, and such havens of refuge! Some men, I verily believe, would shoot at an archangel himself if he appeared on the wing. A fine of five shillings is ridiculously inadequate; when five pounds can be obtained for the specimen it is no deterrent at all.

I am afraid that the laws relating to bird-protection are in many cases but a farce; for example—shade of Dracon!—in some places the eggs are allowed to be taken, but not the young or old birds, and, as Mr. Southwell pointed out in an excellent letter to 'The Field,' it is not fair that the onus of getting up a Zool. 4th ser. vol. II., August, 1898.