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 A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE works may be summarized as follows : In 1789 a very fair list of birds was published by James Pilkington in his View of the present state of Derbyshire, which was practically republished with additional notes by Mr. O. Jewitt in Stephen Glover's History of the County of Derby (1829); Mr. J. J. Briggs contributed a long series of notes on Derbyshire orni- thology, with especial reference to the Melbourne district, to the Zoologist from its commencement in 1843 to the time of his death; and in 1866 Mr. A. O. Worthington contributed a list of Repton birds to a hand- book of the Wild Flowers, etc,, of Repton. In 1863 a more important work was published entitled The Natural History of Tutbury, which con- tains a chapter on the birds of the district by Sir O. Mosley, and a careful list of those species which have occurred near Burton-on-Trent by Mr. Edwin Brown. The "Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society for 1892 (p. 176) contains a most interesting reprint of the shooting diary of the Rev. Francis Gisborne of Staveley from 1761 to 1784, many of the records in which are of very great interest. Local lists by Mr. G. W. Pullen and F. B. Whitlock appeared in 1883 and 1886, and in 1893 the Biro's of Derbyshire was published. i. Mistle-Thrush. Turdus viscivorus, Linn. Locally, Thrice-cock, Storm-cock, Sy-cock, Sedcock; Holm Thrush (J. J. Briggs). This fine bird varies a good deal in numbers from year to year, but is generally distributed and in places quite common. It appears to suffer much in hard winters but soon recovers its position after a mild season. Many of the birds met with in the autumn are immigrants. The mistle-thrush is an early breeder : full clutches may be found from the third week in March onward, but the usual time for first broods is from April i to 10. These early nests are often very conspicuous on the leafless trees. They are as a rule placed at the fork of a bough with the trunk. Nests are how- ever occasionally found far out on the hori- zontal boughs of oak trees. In rare instances they have been found quite low down among evergreen shrubs in a garden, as at Shirley in 1899. Although naturally a very shy bird the nest of the mistle-thrush is frequently found close to houses, probably for the sake of protection against the magpie (Pica rustled], Many clutches are annually destroyed by these birds in spite of the stout resistance made by the parent birds. The typical nest is lined with dry grasses, but it is not unusual to find nests with a considerable amount of wool in the lining. According to F. B. Whitlock, in the High Peak the nests are sometimes found on ledges of rock (Birds of Derbyshire, p. 24). When undisturbed the mistle-thrush will sometimes rear a second brood from the same nest. I knew of two cases in which this took place in the past season (1901), both nests being within a few yards of houses. The usual clutch in this county consists of four eggs : five are however occasionally, but rarely, found. In mild weather the mistle-thrush like the song-thrush may be heard singing in the middle of winter. In December, 1900, a very wet and warm month, these birds were constantly singing in the fields. 2. Song-Thrush. Turdus musicus, Linn. Locally, Throstle. The first nests of the thrush may be found long before the hedges have begun to bud. I have seen young birds in the nest at the end of March, but the majority begin to lay about the beginning of April. The eggs show a considerable range of variety in colouring and marking. Some of the handsomest are blotched with reddish brown or chocolate instead of the usual black spots, and between these and the absolutely spotless egg every grade of difference may be met with. The nests are made in a variety of places. Like the blackbird the thrush sometimes nests on the ground, on a bankside or even on the side of a railway embankment, and a nest found on May 29, 1901, was built inside a hay barn and contained five very lightly marked eggs. Curiously enough within a few yards a hen blackbird was sitting on five pale blue eggs in a similar situation. On the higher ground where the hedgerows are replaced by 122