[283]Vol. i. p. 26.

[284]Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds, by W. C. Hewitson, vol. i. p. 27.

[285]As so few opportunities occur of weighing the eggs of the honey-buzzard and hobby, the following notes, most carefully made by Mr. Rake and myself, may not be without interest:—

Honey-buzzard’s nest, taken June 16th, in a low fork of an oak-tree in Anses Wood, contained two fresh-laid eggs:—
First egg (apothecaries’ weight) 1oz. 3dr. 1sc. 5gr.
Second egg (very slightly dinted) 1oz. 2dr. 2sc. 10gr.
Honey-buzzard’s nest, taken June 24th, in Ravensnest Wood, near Brook, in the higher branches of a tall beech, overhanging the road. This nest had been deserted, and the two eggs were very much addled and hard set:—
First egg 1oz. 4dr. 0sc. 10gr.
Second egg 1oz. 3dr. 2sc. 10gr.
Hobby’s nest, placed in a nest which, in 1861, had been occupied by a honey-buzzard, was taken in Prior’s Acre, June 21st, and contained three fresh-laid eggs, now in Mr. Rake’s cabinet:—
First egg 6dr. 0sc. 0gr.
Second egg 5dr. 2sc. 10gr.
Third egg (very slightly dinted) 5dr. 2sc. 0gr.
Hobby’s nest, taken in South Bentley Wood, July 12, contained two eggs hard sat upon and addled:—
First egg 5dr. 2sc. 15gr.
Second egg (cracked) 5dr. 0sc. 14gr.

With these weights may be compared the following:—Egg, supposed to be that of a merlin, taken with two others which were broken, June 17th, 1862, near Alum Green, in the hole of a beech, rather sat upon, weighed 4dr. 1sc. 10gr. Two fresh-laid eggs of kestrels, taken at the same time, weighed 4d. 2sc. 15gr. Other eggs of kestrels, however, have weighed considerably more; and two others, also laid about the same time, came to 5dr. 5 gr.

[286]As the instances of the breeding of the merlin, especially under these circumstances, will always be very rare, I may as well add my own personal observations. In the spring of 1861 I received three eggs taken not far from the Knyghtwood Oak, and said to have been found in the hole of a beech. As I am not in the habit of paying any attention to the mere stories which are so plentiful, I did not, therefore, examine them with any attention, and put them aside as merely kestrel’s. After, however, Mr. Farren’s communication to me, I looked out particularly for this little hawk, but only once saw it in the open ground, near Warwickslade Cutting, from whence it flew up, perching for a moment on a holly, and then making off to the woods. On June 4th, however, I observed a hen bird fly out of a hole, about twenty feet from the ground, in an old beech in Woolstone’s Hill, on the east side of Haliday’s Hill Enclosure. There were, however, no eggs. On the 5th I went again, and the bird, when I was about fifty yards from the tree, again flew off. Still, there were no eggs. I did not return till the 9th, when the nest, now pulled out of the hole, had been robbed. It was made of small sticks, and a considerable quantity of feather-moss, and some fine grass, and in general character resembled the nests of the bird found by Mr. Hewitson in Norway. In the holes were the bones of young rabbits, but these had, from their bleached appearance, been brought by a brown owl, who had reared her brood there in the previous summer. I afterwards learnt where the three eggs had been taken in 1861; but there was nothing, with the exception of a few sticks, in the hole, which was in this case about ten feet from the ground, and placed also in a beech on the edge of Barrowsmoor. Great caution, however, must be exercised regarding the merlin’s eggs; for I am inclined to think that the kestrel, contrary to its usual practice, sometimes also breeds in the Forest in the holes of trees. The egg mentioned at [p. 264], foot-note, brought to me on June 17th, 1862, I have every reason to believe is a merlin’s, but could not quite satisfy myself as to the evidence.

[287]For some account of the little owl (Strix passerina), see [Appendix III.] under the section of Stragglers, [p. 314].

[288]Vol. ii. p. 57.

[289]Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 139.

[290]Passed in the twenty-fourth year of Henry VIII., 1532. Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 425, 426. It should, however, be remembered that under the term chough was in former times included the whole of the Corvidæ. Shakspeare’s “russet-pated choughs” are evidently jackdaws.