HOTES THE TIME PERIOD FOR NEST AND EGG REPLACEMENT. ON May 21st, 1919, in Hampshire, I found the nest of a Nightingale (Luscinia m. megarhyncha) containing four eggs, built in a very exposed situation in a lane. At 7 a.m. the next morning it held five eggs, but later in the day these had been taken. Early in the morning of the 23rd I watched the birds building a new nest about six yards from the old one. On the 30th it contained four eggs. I left the neighbourhood the next day, so do not know if any more were laid. On May 16th, 1920, I found the nest of a Tree-Pipit (Anthus t. trivialis) at North Wooton, W. Norfolk, containing four eggs. This was unfortunately destroyed, but on the 28th a new nest had been built about three yards from the old one and contained five eggs. N. TRACY.

AN AVIAN DEATH-TRAP. AT Hollingbourne House in Kent, the residence of Mr. R. Duppa de Uphaugh, there are two plate-glass windows 10 ft. high by 4 ft. broad situated each side of the main entrance to the house. At one time, about thirty years ago, the centre part of the house was open and the main drive went straight through the building, the entrance then being on the right-hand side under a large archway. This was filled up and is now a hall. There is an avenue of trees to the house. Looking at the windows it appears from reflection that the avenue continues straight through the house. This is especially so when the sun is shining on them. Evidently the reflection of the avenue continuing represents to birds a clear flight, and fatalities against the glass have been con­ tinually going on for the last thirty years. The "following species have been picked up and identified:— Wood-Pigeon, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Hawfinch, Nuthatch, Sparrow-Hawk, Spotted Flycatcher, Song-Thrush, Stock- Dove, Marsh-Tit, Brambling and Blackbird; but no record has been kept of the number killed. JAMES R. HALE, [Similar happenings on a small scale have of course been frequently recorded though the place described above seems to be an unusually fruitiul source of danger.—EDS.] 0 218 BRITISH BIRDS. [VOL. XVIII. UNUSUAL SITUATION OF CHAFFINCH'S NEST. Two nests that I found some years ago must have been built by hirds as eccentric in habit as the one referred to by Mr. Connell (antea, p. 109). I quote from my note-book of the time :— Chaffinch (Fringilla c. ccelebs), Raincliffe Wood, near Scar­ borough, May 31st, 1903. Nest containing 3 eggs in cup- shaped cavity in top of decayed birch tree, 15 feet up, both birds seen. June 2nd, 1906, also Raincliffe Wood. Nest containing 3 eggs in hollow top of broken elder tree, 5 feet up. W. GYNGELL. INCREASE OF THE WOOD-LARK IN GLOUCESTER­ SHIRE AND SURREY. IN his note on the breeding of the Wood-Lark (Lullula a. arborea) in the counties of Shropshire and Worcestershire, Mr. J. S. Elliott (Vol. XVIII., p. 75) mentions that he heard one singing last summer in the Cotswolds above Broad­ way. It may be of interest to record that a colony of these birds flourishes a very few miles to the south and south-west of this point. The locality is in Gloucestershire, but a few pairs inhabit a tract of Worcester­ shire surrounded by Gloucestershire. I believe this to be a very recent extension of breeding area, but only a local one, as I have been informed that the neighbourhood of Cleeve Hill has been a known locality for many years. In October, 1923, I noticed a small party, and returning to the same place in April, 1924, I found two birds singing but failed to find a nest. I revisited the place at Whitsuntide and found a nest containing four fresh eggs, and was shown another about two miles distant with five young just hatched. During April and May other nests with eggs or young had been found by keepers. The favourite feeding ground during the breeding season seems to be stony grass fields cropped close by rabbits and overgrown with low bramble bushes, but the nests I have seen or heard of were in cut-down or newly replanted woods. During the War many acres ot wood were felled and to this I think may be attributed, if not the first appearance of the Wood-Lark, at least a great increase in its numbers in the district. Of the continued increase of this species in Surrey there can be no doubt. I returned this summer after an interval of three years to a locality in that county and found several pairs breeding where I had noticed none before. G. CHARTERIS. VOL. XVIII.] NOTES. 219 LARGE CLUTCH OF EGGS OF SONG-THRUSH. ON May 14th, 1924, I found, some four miles from Perth, the nest of a Song-Thrush (Turdus ph. clarkei) containing eight eggs. The next day there was still another, and the bird was sitting. Unfortunately, I had to leave home for a fortnight just when the eggs were due to hatch. Immediately on my return I visited the nest, which contained one addled egg, and showed unmistakable signs of a large family having been successfully brought up. There were no traces of dead young birds beneath the nest, but I doubt if all eight could have been successfully reared. Nine eggs seem to be the largest number recorded for the Song-Thrush, and must be of very rare occurrence. SCONE.

LATE SWIFT IN SOUTH WALES. ON November 2nd, 1924, at 2 p.m., a Swift (Apus a, apus) was observed in the middle of the city of Cardiff, Glamorgan­ shire, flying low down just clear of the overhead wires of the tramway system. It passed sufficiently near to see that the feathers of the right wing were damaged, which might account for the lateness of the stay, but it is difficult to imagine how food had been procured, if the injury was of such gravity that migration was prevented so long ago as August or September, the normal time of departure. A south-westerly gale was blowing at the time. CLEMENCE M. ACLAND. GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER'S METHOD OF EXCAVATING NEST-HOLE. IN the spring of 1924 I had an opportunity of watching a Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dryobates major anglicus) excavating its nesting-hole. I was able to get within about five yards of the bird. It worked inside the hole for about five minutes, then came out tail first and stopped with its claws on the rim of the nesting-hole, then put its beak inside, drew it out again full of chips and threw them over its shoulder ; it put its head in nine or ten times and brought out a beak- full of chips each time. It then went back into the hole and worked for another five minutes, then backed out again and repeated its previous performance. N. TRACY. GOLDEN EAGLE IN BERKSHIRE. AN Eagle was reported to have been seen on several occasions on the Downs south-west of Wantage during the last week 220 BRITISH BIRDS. [VOL. xvm. of July 1924, and on July 30th it was seen about 10.30 a.m. by Mr. A. Beesly and his keeper soaring over some rough ground, covered with long grass, to the south of Pinal Wood between Letcombe Basset and Fawley. Later in the day the bird settled in the wood and was shot by the keeper, while sitting on a tree. It proved to be a Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetus) and not, as might have been expected, an immature Sea-Eagle. Mr. Beesly gives the span of the expanded wings as 6 ft. 6 in. It is not a dark bird, but has a number of light coloured feathers on the mantle and shows no white on the rectrices. Mr. Beesly had it set up and subsequently presented it to the Reading Museum. It is perhaps worth mention in this connexion that a " Golden Eagle " is said to have been killed at Bala, North Wales, about the end of November 1923 {cf. Field, 31st January, 1924, p. 141), and Mr. Auden states that one of a pair turned down on an island off the coast of Pembrokeshire still survives. F, C. R. JOURDAIN.

PROLONGED SITTING OF SPARROW-HAWK. ON May 25th, 1924, I found the nest of a Sparrow-Hawk (Accipiter n. nisus) ready for eggs near Penzance. On June 7th it contained four fresh eggs of which I took two. On July 26th the bird was still sitting on the two eggs, which were evidently addled. The last date I found her sitting was August 8th. Taking the incubation period at thirty-five days the last egg should have hatched not later than July nth, so that the bird continued to sit for an extra twenty-eight days at least. The only other record I am aware of which relates to the length of time a Sparrow-Hawk will sit on a clutch of infertile eggs is that of Mr. J. H. Owen in British Birds (XII., p. 75), where he says that a bird " after eating two (eggs) on the thirty-eighth day from the first egg, deserted the nest." The entire period in my nest, from the laying of the last egg, was sixty-three days. G. H. HARVEY.

GOLDENEYES IN LANCASHIRE IN SUMMER. IN connection with Captain Boyd's note (antea, p. 194), on Goldeneyes (Bucephala c. clangula) in Cheshire throughout the sximmer of 1924, it may be of interest to record that, on June 13th, a drake in immature plumage was present on a reservoir near Bolton-le-Moors in south Lancashire. The face spot appeared to be complete, but the head was brownish VOL. XVIII.] NOTES. 221 and there was much less than normal of white on the wings and body. It was in company with a duck of the same species —obviously crippled—which I first found on the water in November, 1922, and have seen frequently since then. I did not see the drake later in the month, or subsequently. THOS. BADDELEY. SMEW IN SURREY. ON July 13th, 1924, I observed a female or young male Smew (Mergus albellus) on Hedgecourt Pond, in south-east Surrey. The chestnut head, white throat, and double white wing-bar were very noticeable, and quickly dispelled any doubts as to the identity of the bird. The date would appear to be unusually early for this class of visitor, which has, I believe, rarely been recorded before mid-September. The Smew is normally a rare winter visitor to Surrey. HOWARD BENTHAM.

KNOT IN SUMMER PLUMAGE IN OCTOBER. A KNOT (Calidris c, canutus) in almost full summer plumage was shot on October 2nd, 1924, on the Lancashire coast. A medical post-mortem showed the bird, a female, to be suffering from cancer of the liver, in all probability the reason why it had not changed into winter plumage. H. W. ROBINSON.

BLACK TERN IN SURREY. AN immature Black Tern (Chlidonias niger) appeared at Hedgecourt Pond, in south-east Surrey, on October 12th, 1924. Mr. H. H. Farwig, who was with me, confirmed my identification. The bird has seldom been recorded from east Surrey, although its occurrence on the western side of the county is not very unusual. HOWARD BENTHAM.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF BLACK GROUSE IN GREAT BRITAIN. WITH reference to Mr. H. S. Gladstone's article on the distribu­ tion of the Black Grouse (antea, pp. 66-68) we have received the following notes with respect to its status in Staffordshire, Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire and Breconshire. It will be remembered that Mr. Gladstone divided the counties of England and Wales into four groups : (1) those in which the bird is extinct or a rare straggler; (2) those in which 222 BRITISH BIRDS. [VOL. xvm. it is nearly extinct or very local; (3) those in which it is local; (4) those in which it is numerous locally. In this list Stafford­ shire and Breconshire were placed in group (3), Mon­ mouthshire in group (2) and Glamorganshire in group (1).

STAFFORDSHIRE. We are able, after many years' study of the birds of Staffordshire, and from recent notes kindly supplied to us by landowners, and others, to give the following information which we believe to be accurate at the present time. It may be helpful to our purpose if we divide our county into three areas by parallel lines, as follows :— No. 1 area, comprising the whole of the County north of a line drawn from west to east through the town of Leek. No. 2 area, comprising that part of the County between that line and a parallel line drawn through the town of Stafford. No. 3 area, that part of the County south of the last mentioned line. No. 1 area, comprising the Moorlands of Staffordshire, is one of the indigenous homes of the Black Grouse where their present status comes under Mr. Gladstone's " Head No. 4, Numerous locally," maintaining its numbers each year, and bags of from fifteen to twenty Black Cock are still made in a day's Grouse driving. No. 2 area must now, we fear, be classed under Mr. Glad­ stone's " Head No. 2, nearly extinct or very local." Up to fifteen or twenty years ago the Black Grouse was local in this area, but nested in many woods, especially around Cheadle, Oakamoor, Croxden, Chartley, and Dilhorne, and also in the western portion of this area on Maer Hills, and the Bishops and Burnt Woods. No. 3 area must also be classed under Mr. Gladstone's " Head No. 2." This area comprises an historic home of the Black Grouse, namely, Cannock Chase, of which The Field newpaper of October ist, 1921, reported as follows : " Lord Lichfield's Moor, Cannock Chase.—On October 21st, " 1897, 7 guns killed4i Blackgrouse. On October 20th, 1898, " 8 guns killed 40 Blackgrouse, . . . and Lord Berkeley " Paget has stated that before coal came to be the main " black asset of Cannock Chase, there were 252 Blackgame " killed in a single day's driving, and that on another occasion " the bag was 189, while Lord Berkeley himself shot 126 " Blackgame in one day to his own gun." Lord Lichfield in a letter dated August 23rd, 1924, says:— VOL. XVIII.] NOTES. 223 " I am afraid that the period of the War and the Camp and " troops on The Chase practically exterminated the Black- " game. In 1919 I saw one old Grey Hen, and in 1920 and " 1921 I twice saw two Grey Hens together. Last year (1923) " I saw a Grey Hen and a Black Cock one day in November." Mr. Edric Wolseley in a letter dated September 25th, 1924, written from Park House, Rugeley, states that he saw a Black Cock and Grey Hen on his tennis lawn last spring (1924), and his Game Book shows that in 1842 the bag was 93, in 1843 it was 74, and gradually down to 36 in 1852. Between 1898 and 1904 he shot 19. JOHN R. B. MASEFIELD. T. SMITH.

MONMOUTHSHIRE. The only portion of the county suitable for Black Grouse is the north-west (i.e., the south-east portion of the South Wales Coalfield) and the adjoining Black Mountains (old Red Sandstone) to the north-east of the coalfield. This ground must have been ideal for these birds at one time, as there are dozens of wet places growing rushes—one very large bog of nearly a square mile—and scores of birch spinneys in the little branch valleys running down from the mountains. An old man told me some years ago, that about sixty years ago, there were a few on the side of a mountain within sight of Newport, about six miles away, and that the Red Grouse were then common on the same mountain. But the only place where I have heard of Black Grouse in the county was in the Llanthony valley. This valley and the adjoining branch valleys are almost entirely in the county of Monmouthshire, and I think there can be no doubt that they were the nesting places of the birds found on the moors and the mountains adjoining. A correspondent in the valley wrote me on April 5th, 1924, to say " I don't think there, are any Black Cock or Grey Hen left now, as none have been killed for some years." Mr. W. L. Thomas, the shooting tenant of the estate, wrote me on April 9th, 1924, as follows : " I saw two Black Cock last August on the Llanthony shoot, but am doubtful if I saw a Grey Hen. Eight or nine years ago, one might frequently see half a dozen of the birds, but they appear to me to be verging on extinction altogether." Part of the Llanthony shoot is in Breconshire and part in Monmouthshire. I think the want of better protection during the war has been the cause of these birds being reduced to a vanishing quantity in this county. R. C. BANKS. 224 BRITISH BIRDS. [VOL. xvm. GLAMORGANSHIRE AND BRECONSHIRE. So far as I am aware the Black Grouse is extremely rare in Glamorganshire. Occurrences are entirely confined to its northern edge where odd birds wander over, at very infrequent intervals, from Breconshire. They still breed in the latter county but I believe they are not increasing in numbers, and during a couple of weeks' holiday spent near Builth Wells in 1923, I never saw a single bird. GEOFFREY C. S. INGRAM.