. British birds. Birds. OTES. LARGE SETS OF ROOKS' EGGS IN ESSEX AND BERKSHIRE. On April ist, 1922, a party examined a large number of nests of Rook [Corvus f. frugilcgiis) in a big rookeiy at Saling, Essex. The number of eggs in the nests averaged very high. Very many nests contained five eggs and quite a large proportion held ; one nest actually had seven eggs. These eggs varied very much both in size and colour. Some were lightly marked and others very heavily pigmented. Out of the many hundreds of nests I have examined with the aid of boys, since I have been at Felsted, this is the on
. British birds. Birds. OTES. LARGE SETS OF ROOKS' EGGS IN ESSEX AND BERKSHIRE. On April ist, 1922, a party examined a large number of nests of Rook [Corvus f. frugilcgiis) in a big rookeiy at Saling, Essex. The number of eggs in the nests averaged very high. Very many nests contained five eggs and quite a large proportion held ; one nest actually had seven eggs. These eggs varied very much both in size and colour. Some were lightly marked and others very heavily pigmented. Out of the many hundreds of nests I have examined with the aid of boys, since I have been at Felsted, this is the only time that I have known a nest to contain seven eggs. J. H. Owen. AiTHOUGH I have examined large numbers of Rooks' nests and have seen eggs not infrequently, it was not till April 8th, 1922, that a nest containing seven eggs was met with in a Berkshire rookery. The}' were quite uniform in type, being long, pointed, greenish-blue eggs, and formed a striking contrast with a set of six rounded, greyish eggs from the same tree. Since then Mr. R. W. Chase has shown me another set of seven in his collection. F. C. R. Jourdain. MEALY REDPOLL IN BUCKINGHAM AND HERTFORDSHIRE. The meagre positive evidence of the Mealy Redpoll {Carduelis I. linaria) in Buckingham and Hertfordshire will perhaps justify a note on its occurrence in some numbers during the past winter. On December 4th, 1921, there was a flock of between twenty and thirty at Weston Turville Reservoir. When I first saw them the birds were clinging to the wilted stems of willow-herb {Epilohium hirsutttm) and feeding on the seed, but on that day and afterwards they were mostly in the large patches of a goose-foot [Chenopodium mbrtim), which had sprung up on the wide stretches of mud exposed by the drought of last summer. They varied a good deal in plumage, some being much greyer and having more distinct white wing-bars than others. During December and January I could always count on the birds being among the patches of goo
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