cover their eggs. Put up a Nightjar, which flew into a Scotch fir, and squatted, as they always do, lengthwise along a bough.
17th.—Found a Hawfinch's nest with eggs. Waterhen's with young on the top of a reed-fence five feet from the ground.
22nd.—Several Tree-Sparrows' nests in an old orchard. Longeared Owl's with young in an old Magpie's nest.
27th.—A fine Allis Shad, weighing 6 lb. 2 oz., was brought to me. It had been caught in a Salmon net not far from York. These fish rarely come up the Derweut so far nowadays.
28th.—Young Magpies out of the nest. In some of the market-gardens about here they do damage to the strawberry-beds, eating the fruit just before it gets ripe.
29th.—Metcalfe and I found several Reed Bunting's, Lark's, Meadow Pipit's, and Whinchat's nests. It has been asserted in the pages of 'The Zoologist' that the latter bird is not double-brooded, but it is undoubtedly so here. The customs and habits of birds differ in different localities. Nearly all the Sky-Larks' nests contained three eggs. I look upon this as the usual clutch in Yorkshire; often there are four, but very rarely indeed five.
31st.—Found eggs of the Black-headed Gull. This colony, almost our last in the county, is, I am glad to say, holding its own, thanks to the protection afforded by the owner of the estate. It used to be ruthlessly harried, the eggs taken regularly, and it is a wonder that it has survived. The Wild Birds Protection Act is very often a mere farce, and were it not that private enterprise frequently steps in, it would be a complete failure. Moore got a photo of a Redshank on her nest. The camera was most carefully covered up, and he was working with a hundred yards of fishing-line tied to the trigger, and hiding behind a clump of gorse; but he had to wait five hours before she came back, and then he got a shot at her. A Cuckoo's egg, ordinary type, much incubated, in a Hedge-Sparrow's nest.
June.
1st.—An old Rook, well powdered with white on the breast and back, got at Cottingwith.
3rd.—A fine old cock Crossbill, caught in a Magpie-trap at Thornton-dale, was brought to me by Mr. R. Hill, which I stuffed.
