NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 225
hundred yards further on a beautiful, full-grown Heron rose from the same brook.
The little one was so small that I think it must have been bred where we found
it.—Ernest W. Heatley. Ingrave, July 12th, 1896. [Several instances of
solitary Heron's nests are recorded by Mr. Fitch in The Essex Naturalist
(vol. ii., p. 174.]
Kingfishers Killed by Flying against a Window.—Four or five years
ago, on two occasions, I found a Kingfisher killed by flying against the bay
window of my dining-room. On the 17th of this month a third was found killed
under the same circumstances. I may observe that there is no stream anywhere
near the house ; the only water being a very small pond in the garden, and a
village pond at the gate, the house not being in the line from one to the other.
—Robert Woodhouse, Longmead, Writtle, December 19th, 1895.—[The facts
here recorded are certainly extraordinary. We have heard before of Kingfishers
killing themselves by flying against the glass of windows, but for this to occur
thrice, within a short time, against the same window, and without any obvious
cause, is unaccountable.—Ed.]
Nesting of the Short-eared Owl (Asio brachyotus) in Essex.—Mr.
E. A. Fitch writes as follows to "The Zoologist" for June, 1896 : "I have been
much interested in finding a Short-eared Owl's nest on my island (Northey,
Maldon), with eleven young ones, three out of the nest, two good snappers, and
two just hatched, the rest graduated in pairs. Although I write 'nest,' there
really is none, properly so called, the young being on the bare grass against a
tussock. My man said two of the eggs were unhatched on May 26th. There are
eighteen colts on the marsh, and the way the old owls 'go for' these, my man
says, 'is a caution, as good as any dog he ever saw.' "
Snow Buntings at Southend and Canvey Island.—Mr. H. Sharp, of
Southend, observes in "The Zoologist" (vol. xx., p., 143) that on March 14th,
1896, he saw four Snow Buntings (Plectrophanes nivalis) on the cliff between
Southend and Shoeburyness, which he considers a remarkably late date for
these birds to remain after so mild a winter. He continues : "I have several
times this winter been 'flighting' on the east end of Canvey Island, and there
on and about the broken bank and the grassy foreshore, I have invariably met
with Snow Buntings ; and it is worthy of remark that, with one notable
exception, they showed very little white on their plumage."
Great Snipe (Gallinago major) at Thaxted.—"On September 3rd, 1896,
when at Horham Hall, Thaxted, I secured a specimen of the Great Snipe. It
was flushed in a field of clover, and weighed precisely seven ounces. It is in the
hands of Messrs. Williams, of Dublin, for preservation. They have informed me
that the bird is an adult and one of the most perfect specimens that has come
under their observation."—G. A. Templer, Eldon Club, Lonsdale Chambers,
Chancery Lane, in "The Zoologist," for October.
A Foster-Mother.—The "Rector of Great Parndon, Essex," wrote on July,
22nd, 1896, as follows to "The Standard": "We all know the story of that
beautiful alien, the Cuckoo, how it burglariously enters the nest of another bird
not of its own kind, ejects the eggs it finds there from their rightful home, and
coolly lays its own eggs in their place, leaving these eggs to be hatched, and the
young Cuckoos to be nourished, by the parents whose home has been so ruthlessly
violated.
" This is the commonly-accepted belief about the Cuckoo's pleasant ways, but I
doubt whether many persons have seen with their own eyes what I saw this morn-