Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/506

436 Saunders's 'Manual'), although (as the bird is stuffed) the wings look very short for this species. This example has the under parts well marked with longitudinal streaks, and it has been suggested to me that for this reason it cannot be Montagu's Harrier, and that I identified it wrongly. I should be very glad to hear from anyone who has sexed examples of young Montagu's Harriers.— (Bloxham, Oxon).

Moorhens feeding Young.—On July 13th I watched a pair of Moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) swimming about in a small pond with their brood of six newly-hatched young ones—tiny balls of black fluff with red bills. Both the old birds were feeding the youngsters with insects taken from the surface of the water, and, as far as I could see, with small pieces of water-weed; also on one occasion with a morsel off a lump of bread which was floating on the water. Swimming in the same pond were three full-grown young birds of the year (in the grey-brown plumage, with green bill and legs), presumably the first brood of the old pair, and I was interested to observe that these fed the newly-hatched young ones with as great assiduity as did the old birds, and that the young ones followed them about quite as much as they did their parents. I see that this habit, which was new to me, is not unknown, for Mr. Howard Saunders, in his 'Manual' (p. 518), says:—"Two, if not three, broods are produced in the season, the young from the first nest assisting their parents in building another, and even in taking care of the second brood." The method of feeding struck me as peculiar. The old bird, on catching an insect, swam up, and presented it to the youngster, who picked it out of his (or her) bill. Never once did the old bird place it in the young one's mouth, as is usually the case in birds which feed their young, nor the young one open its bill to receive it.— ("Flaxley," 82, Finchley Road, N.W.).

Ornithological Incidents at Petersfield.—Noteworthy incidents have been singularly scarce in this locality during the present year. I have only to record an instance of two Cuckoo's eggs in the nest of a Hedge-Sparrow containing two eggs of the rightful owner. This occurred early in June in a hedge by the roadside near Theale, Berkshire. A little later in the month two more Cuckoo's eggs were found in a Hedge-Sparrow's nest, close to the site of the first nest.— (The Vicarage, Compton, Petersfield).

Morphological Interpretation.—Dear Mr. Distant,—In the introtroduction to your first volume on the 'Rhynchota of British India' (p. xxx) you say:—"In some Reduviids the antennæ are apparently