Towards the end of April, 1877, I paid several visits to the lowlying moorland in the vicinity of Broughton-in-Furness, and found that ten or twelve pairs of Curlews had returned to their breeding haunts, though they did not appear lo have actually commenced nesting. Every effort to discover the eggs of this species, repeated throughout the following month, proved unavailing, and the nearest approach to the desired discovery was a nest from which the young had evidently just been hatched, which I came across on May 26th, whilst beating up a small piece of marshy ground situated in a deep hollow among the fells. In the same locality the number of Carrion Crows' nests was very noticeable. Almost every one of the stunted thorn-bushes, which are here sparsely scattered about on the hills, seemed to be occupied by one of these nests, placed at a height of about ten feet from the ground. Most of them were evidently old ones, and it seemed as if the Crows had occupied the locality undisturbed for many generations. One nest contained four young ones on May 19th. Some Common Sandpipers, which I met with on the edge of a small tarn during an excursion amongst the fells, appeared to be breeding, but a search after their eggs proved unavailing.
I am glad to say that the Buzzard is still plentiful on the Cumberland hills. On May 5th an energetic friend, who spends most of his spare time amongst the hills, brought me three eggs which he had obtained with great difficulty from a crag near Black Apron. His efforts to trap the old birds had failed, as had a previous attempt made by a keeper in another locality.[1] I learnt from this same keeper that the Dotterel is still to be found on the mountains about Wastwater, but hitherto all his attempts to discover their eggs have failed. On one occasion he could have killed three or four at a shot on the mountain known as "The Screes," but resisted doing so for the sake of the eggs he was hunting for. At the foot of this lake I was shown a fir tree from which the nest of a Buzzard was taken last spring. The situation was considered by the natives to be a most unusual one.
The most interesting specimen which came under my immediate
- ↑ If the unfortunate birds are trapped as well as their eggs taken, our correspondent will very soon be unable to rejoice that the Buzzard is plentiful. We deprecate this wholesale destruction of both old and young. If a "sitting" of eggs is taken, not much harm is done, for the birds in all probability will lay again; but if at the same time the birds are trapped or shot, what then?—Ed.
