BREEDING OF THE KITE AND BUZZARD IN ESSEX. 21
partner, Mr. G. H. Verrall, F.E.S. About twenty-five years ago
(say about 1880), this Mr. Scott the younger left for Canada,
when Mr. Pratt purchased his entire collection of birds' eggs,
including these reputed Essex kites' and buzzards' eggs, and they
remained in his possession until he put them into Mr. Stevens'
auction sale last October.
This seems as far as it is now possible to get in investigating
the history of these interesting eggs. I have been unable as yet
to ascertain anything further as to the personality of the Mr.
John Scott who collected them. I have searched White's and the
Post Office Directories of Essex, covering the period when the eggs
were collected, but have failed to find his name as that of a resi-
dent in the Maldon district at the time in question ; and Mr.
Fitch, who has made enquiries locally, has failed to hear any-
thing of him. Of course, however, this negative result does not
prove that the eggs were not taken by him there ; for he may
have been visiting, not residing in, the district when he collected
them. Mr. Pratt has an idea that he lived at Plymouth.
Perhaps some of my readers may be able to say who he was.'
Next let me say a few words as to the general probability of
these eggs having been taken in Essex in the years named—
apart, I mean, from the evidence afforded by the inscriptions
written upon them.
Taking the Kite first,2 we find that it still bred occasionally in
the county up to about 1825 or 1830 ; while Mr. Henry
Stephenson, of Birch, tells me he recollects hearing of a nest on
Mersea Island (which is not more than eleven miles from
Maldon) about 1845 (which is only nine years before 1854).
Further, we have Dr. Laver's statement that in 1854—the very
year in which these eggs are said to have been taken—he saw a
Kite at Paglesham, though he cannot now recollect at what time
of year this was. Moreover, there is the late Mr. Travis's state-
ment that a specimen in his possession was shot at Sampford
about 1872," in the middle of summer"; which, if correct, can
only mean that it was breeding, though this seems very doubtful
1 [Not impossibly he was the entomologist of that name who was the joint-author, with
J. W. Douglas, of The British Hemiptera-Hetcroptcra (Ray Soc, 1865). The entomologist was
born at Morpeth on 21 September 1823 ; lived at Stockton-on-Tees and various other places
in England ; and died in London on 30 August 1888, aged 65. The obituary notices of him
which I have seen (Entomologist, 1888, p. 288, and Entomologists' Monthly Magazine, XXV.,
pp. 114-116) make no mention of his having taken an interest in ornithology, but this does not
prove that he had none, for they appeared in entomological magazines which might very well
omit notice of a man's work in other branches of natural history.— W.C, Ed.],
2 See Birds of Essex, p. 169.