After a month's cold, clear weather, with dry, parching, northerly winds--the finest heather-burning season that ever was seen--a considerable rainfall during the past week has been welcomed as a boon rather than otherwise, and the country around is all the greener and gladder because of it [April 1872.] During an afternoon's ramble on Saturday we found a redbreast's nest, a blackbird's, and a chaffinch's, all with their full complement of eggs in them; while the nests of several other species, some completed and some still abuilding, were to be found by diligent searching in almost every likely locality. For many years past there has been no such favourable season for wild birds. An amusing scene a day or two ago was the following:--One of our hens, disregarding the companionship of the rest, and desirous of more freedom of action, in a matter so important, than the hen-house could supply, took to laying her eggs in a hole she had scratched out under an old hazel root in a neighbouring copse. Complaints were by-and-by brought into the house that although this hen regularly dropped her quotidian egg in the spot selected, it was found that, unless immediately taken away from her, the egg was sure to be sucked by some sly thief who doubtless enjoyed such a delicacy at this season amazingly, and all the more so, we daresay, that his pilferings had hitherto passed undetected, despite the strictest vigilance on the part of those more immediately interested. It was very annoying, as you may believe, morning after morning to find the fresh and pearly shell at the nest's side, its contents abstracted through a gaping hole in its bulge, instead of the snowy treasure, totus, teres atque rotundus, as it should be. Appealed to for such assistance as we could render in detecting and punishing the culprit, whoever he might be, we began by setting a trap for ground vermin, properly baited, and as cunningly as possible placed, but without result. Determined, however, to discover the petty larcenist, if possible, we took advantage of an idle forenoon last week to sit and watch the nest from a distance, our object in the first instance being to find out who the depredator really was; we could afterwards and at our leisure take such steps as we might deem advisable for his capture. Selecting a convenient spot whence we could see without being seen, and provided with a powerful binocular, we watched and waited with the most exemplary diligence and patience, and were rewarded, after some time, by discovering the culprit to be neither rat, stoat, nor weasel, nor other quadrupedal marauder, but a common crow, or rook rather--Corvus frugilegus, Linnæus calls him, though Corvus omnivorus would be nearer the mark--a large old male bird, as he afterwards proved to be, who had doubtless in his day sucked many an egg and sacked many a homestead of its callow fledglings. We first observed him alighting on the branch of a large