Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/415

Rh

Lesser Shrew and Bank Vole in Berks.—I have never met with either of these little mammals in the part of Berkshire with which I am most familiar. Their congeners appear to be common enough. I should like to know whether either species has been satisfactorily identified as occurring in Berkshire. The Microtus glareolus, or Bank Vole, is no doubt found in Berkshire, though I have never chanced to come across it; but as regards Sorex minutus (the Lesser Shrew), its occurrence is not so probable. Any information therefore would be welcome.— (Fyfield, near Abingdon).

Note on the Nesting Habits of the Sparrow-Hawk.—The Sparrow-Hawk (Accipiter nisus) is such a well-known bird that it seems hardly possible that any of its habits and ways should have escaped the notice of so many observers. Yet the following fact in the nesting economy of this Hawk still appears—as far as I know—to stand unrecorded. My knowledge of the Sparrow-Hawk has been confined chiefly to the eastern part of Fifeshire, in Scotland, where the bird is common and generally met with. When out looking for the eggs of the Long-eared Owl, in the latter days of March or the beginning of April, we used on these occasions to have a look round in those parts of the woods to which the Sparrow-Hawks returned from year to year with almost unfailing regularity for the purpose of rearing their young; and as a result of these observations we found that, though the Sparrow-Hawk does not, as a general rule (in Fife), begin to sit till the second or third week in May, she invariably begins to build her nest about the first week in April, or even, should the weather be warm, in the last days of March. At this time the outer rim only (composed, as a rule, of larch-twigs) of the nest is completed, and is so left until about a week before the laying of the first egg, when the bowl is added, this latter being generally made of small birch-twigs, and lined with pieces of Scotch fir and bark about the size of a florin. The nest was invariably placed on a branch well out from the main trunk, though more rarely in the "breek" of the tree. The tail of the sitting bird was generally to be seen projecting over the edge of the nest. It would interest me to know if this strange nesting