AVES.
Chiffchaff building on the top of small Yew and Box Trees.—My friend Mr. George Alcock, who is much interested in British birds, sends me the following note, which, I think, is worth publishing:—"A Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus rufus) built in my garden at the top of a yew ten feet above ground. It built a second time on the top of a box-bush four feet above ground. I have found scores, but have never before seen one in these positions. In each case the young came to maturity; there were four eggs each time." Mr. Alcock well knows what he is talking about, or I should have been inclined to think that he had mistaken the nest of the Willow Warbler for that of the Chiffchaff; but the late Lord Lilford was of opinion that the latter bird more frequently built at some height from the ground than the former, an experience opposed to my own, but (without any doubt) based upon considerably greater knowledge of the two species.—A.G. Butler (Beckenham, Kent).
Swallows and Hobbies (ante, p. 476).—It may perhaps be remembered that in 'The Zoologist' for 1892, p. 26, I called attention to the fact which Mr. Warde Fowler, in his interesting note, has corroborated. Strange to say, one evening about the middle of September, as I sat at a window in the dusk of evening watching the Swallows as they with hurried and erratic flight dashed over the houses towards the river, I observed a much larger and darker bird accompanying them, and at the time suspected it was a Hawk; but it had gone out of sight too quickly for me to determine what it was. It no doubt has been observed that the flight of the Swallows at such a time is very low—only just over the housetops—and silent, as if they feared to get benighted ere they reached their roosting place; or that something had frightened them, and they wished to get out of sight as quickly and quietly as possible; so different to the gliding, twittering, happy, and, I always think, friendly and fearless flight of the birds at other times. It is gratifying to be able to say that the handsome little Hobby still visits this locality, and I have every reason to suppose it bred near here during the past summer, as I saw a pair near a certain wood in July, a male was killed in another direction in August, and I have no doubt the bird I saw in September following the Swallows was of the same species, for it is well known that this little Falcon is often on the wing very late in the day; and I have seen the stomach of more than one specimen where the remains of the dusk-loving Dor-beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius) indicated that the coleopteron named was a particular article of diet.—G.B. Corbin (Ringwood, Hants).
Sky-Lark (Alauda arvensis) singing in October.—On the morning of October 16th I heard a Lark singing, which was repeated on the 17th,
