3 JUNE 1955, Page 12

How reptilian is an unfeathered bird! Crossing the moorland slope

on \my way to the road I came to one of the pools of a stream and lying among the boulders, a foot or so beneath the surface, was a grey object which I took to be a dead frog. Being curious to see how a frog came to lose its life in water. I prodded the body with my stick. It-turned out to be a nestling, but I was not able to identify it except to say that it was about the size of a ring ousel. It was bigger than a nestling dipper and it was not a partridge or grouse chick for there are neither 'in this particular locality. I thought of birds of prey. Had the carrion crow dropped this plump morsel and been unable to recover it from the water, or had it been pushed out of