Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/513

Rh note in the October issue of 'The Zoologist,' there is at times an undoubted tendency on the part of sundry birds to appropriate for breeding purposes nests to which they have no rightful claim, though I do not say that such tendency is possessed by very many species, nor that it is illustrated with undue frequency. At p. 74 of 'The Vertebrate Animals of Leicestershire and Rutland' will be found a note having reference to a Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola) which reared two successive broods in a Chaffinch's (Fringilla cœlebs) nest at Ashlands, in this county, in the spring of 1883; while in the same work, at p. 65, I have given a brief account of a Blue Tit's (Parus cæruleus) nest, found in June of the same year, which contained nine eggs, and was placed inside the ancient habitation of a Song Thrush (Turdus musicus). In the former instance the Spotted Flycatcher had merely usurped a forsaken nest, utilising it just as it came to hand. It was otherwise, however, in the case of the Blue Titmouse.

Perhaps the most unusual incident of the kind that ever came under my notice was in connection with a brand-new nest built by a pair of Magpies (Pica rustica), and on which, just when it was ready for eggs, a pair of Kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) set envious eyes. By sheer good fortune I chanced to arrive on the scene one morning just as it was light, and was an eye-witness of a regular pitched battle between the opposing species. The Magpies were eventually worsted, and some ten days later I scaled the tree, a tall larch in a secluded spinney near to Skeffington, and possessed myself of a truly lovely clutch of eggs belonging to the victors. The incident is chiefly interesting from the fact that Kestrels are popularly supposed to appropriate—when they have need so to do—old nests only.

May I be allowed to take this opportunity—of pen in hand—of informing many bird-loving correspondents who have written to me privately, as well as others who may be interested, that circumstances have necessitated my abandoning—at any rate for the present—all hope of publishing my 'Original Sketches of British Birds'? The work, dealing with the experiences of half a life-time spent, I may say, uninterruptedly amidst birds in their native and varying haunts, and completed so long ago as 1895, has been found altogether too costly to produce at the author's private expense. I am emboldened to seek the privilege of giving the foregoing statement publicity through the medium of 'The Zoologist' in the hope that any possible misunderstanding in the future will thereby be averted, seeing that extracts from the manuscript have already appeared, to wit, in the late Mr. F. Poynting's beautiful work entitled 'Eggs of British Birds'; while the author, in publicly acknowledging his indebtedness, alluded to the 'Sketches' as on the eve of publication—a statement which I had reason at the time to believe was eminently justifiable.— (Melton Mowbray).