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 A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE at Oakley and the woods at Gopsall, and further added that he had seen one, shot in Oakley Wood by a game- keeper named Monk. IntheMM/anJNatura/ist(l8$2, p. 62, the late Dr. Macaulay reported one seen in Allex- ton Wood in 1 88 1 ; but his informant, Mr. Davenport, replying to my inquiries, stated that this was a mis- conception of a verbal communication, and that so far as he could recollect 'the taxidermist at Billesdon (Potter by name) had in his shop for six or seven years (if not more) a bird shot at Allexton by a Mr. Brewster who once lived at Allexton Hall ; this bird was said to be a gos-hawk.' Potter, on being written to, confirmed this, but having since then seen him, he informed me that the gentleman was in America, therefore I am still in doubt whether a large female sparrow-hawk has not done duty in this, as in many similar cases, for the gos-hawk. 103. Sparrow-Hawk. Acclpiter nisus (Linn.). Resident and generally distributed. Twice I have seen this bold hawk dash over Museum Square, Leices- ter ; the last time in the spring of 1887, so low as to show the barred chest quite plainly ; just topping the houses as it flew over the town. This species breeds at Knighton, whence I procured a nest and five eggs in July, 1883. Mr. Davenport, who found a sparrow-hawk nesting in Skeffington Wood in March, 1884, wrote : ' She laid her first egg oti 30 April, and continued laying in the same nest by fits and starts until the first week in June, making four- teen eggs in all from this nest ! This bird laid forty- five eggs in five years : fourteen in 1879, four in 1880, nine in 1881, four in 1882 (in 1883 I was in Corn- wall), and fourteen in 1884. All the forty-five eggs were very similar, and the five nests were all within a radius of a hundred yards. In 1885 she disappeared.' On my writing for confirmation, Mr. Davenport replied : ' I am positive the birds are the same in each instance. E.ich egg betokens a likeness to its neigh- bour, and each year the brown markings on the eggs were fewer and less defined. Sparrow-hawks I have found patch up, flatten, clean, and enlarge the old nests of magpies and carrion-crows, but I doubt their ever building a new nest, as some authors assert they do. At Keythorpe, from a nest in a fir-plantation, I took fifteen eggs consecutively. After the fifteenth egg I molested her no more. For three consecutive years this bird adapted an old pigeon's nest for use in one of the trees.' Mr. W. J. Horn writes in 1907 : ' A neighbour brought me a male sparrow-hawk alive and uninjured which he had caught in his garden.' 104. Kite. Milvus ictinus, Savigny. Now extinct in the county. Mr. Babington (Potter, op. cit. App. 66) wrote : ' One was shot from a window at Longcliff, in the act of watching tame young pigeons ' ; and Harley re- marked that when he ' was a boy, the kite was common and very widely known in the county,' it not being an unusual sight to witness one glide overhead towards the forest of Charnwood and its bleak lone hills. He also stated that even in his day it occasionally frequented Martinshaw, Groby Woods, and the extensive belts of plantations flanking the forest, and that in the wooded domains of Gopsall and Donington the kite was not unknown. Further, ' the species occurred at Belvoir Woods in the autumn of 1850.' This is the last authentic dated record I have of the occurrence of this species, and only Kite Hill, in the Forest of Charnwood, remains to remind us that it was once sufficiently numerous to give its name to this place, where no doubt it formerly nested. The late Mr. Widdowson informed me, in 1886, that he had received three or four during the last twenty- five years. Colonel F. Palmer, of Withcote Hall, writing in February, 1 888, said: 'We used many years ago, say fifty, to have the kite in Owston Wood.' C. and T. Adcock, writing in February, 1888, said : 'A regular visitor, sixty-five years ago, to Bradgate Park. Our grandfather, George Evans, told us that he had taken its nest there.' 105. Honey-Buzzard. Pernis aplvorus (Linn.). A rare summer visitant. Harley recorded that a beautiful though immature example was shot by Chaplin, the gamekeeper, at Martinshaw Wood, on 28 Oct., 1841. It was flushed from the ground, where it was feeding on the larvae of the common wasp. Its cry on being surprised resembled that emitted by the barn-owl. A second example wa, according to Harley, shot shortly afterwards in Lea Wood, near Ulverscroft, and for want of a little knowledge of its rarity and value was consigned to the ferrets. I saw at Noseley Hall a specimen in ordinary dark plumage, shot by Sir Arthur Hazlerigg about 1872. I purchased a female specimen (in the immature brown plumage), shot at Theddington, 1 8 June, 1879, by Mr. W. Hart, jun. This speci- men is now in the possession of Mr. R. W. Chase, of Edgbaston, Birmingham. I examined a dark specimen in the possession of the late Mr. Widdowson, which was procured nearTwyford Mill in September, 1881, by a Mr. Greasley, who for several mornings had seen it about and had attempted to shoot it, when, after losing sight of it for two days, he was attracted to the spot where it lay dead by a crowd of little birds sur- rounding it. Apparently it had been killed by flying against the telegraph-wires. The museum possesses an immature male specimen in light snuff-coloured plumage, taken at Croxton Park on 13 June, 1884. A fine female specimen was shot whilst perching in a tree at Arnesby on 19 Sept., 1890, and was pre- sented to the museum by Mr. J. Chamberlain. 106. Peregrine Falcon. Fako peregrinus, Tunstall. Of rare occurrence and does not breed in the county. Mr. Babington (Potter, op. cit. App. p. 66), under date 1842, mentioned that 'a very fine female specimen was shot five or six years ago, near the Loughborough outwoods ' ; also that ' two, a male and female, were killed at Gopsall about two years ago.' These are without doubt the same recorded by Harley, who was informed by Mr. Bloxam that a pair were shot during the summer of 1838. He further stated that Chaplin had met with it occasion- ally at Bradgate, and it had been captured by Monk in Oakley and Piper Woods. Harley also recorded it from Donington, whilst the late Mr. R. Widdowson appears to have known it to occur at Stapleford Park. Turner reports a female shot by Mr. Berkeley at the North Bridge, Leicester, some years since, while chas- ing pigeons. In October, 1886, an immature female specimen was obtained for the museum, said to have been shot some eight years previously at Woodgate, near the North Bridge, out of some high poplar-trees, but I am rather doubtful as to the genuineness of this statement. In May, 1886, the museum acquired an 136