276 CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES. 



situation, near Marie Hill, at a late hour in the evening, when the young birds 

 were brought down to his residence in the heart of the town, and placed in a 

 cage which was suspended in his garden. About three o'clock in the afternoon of 

 the following day, the female Starling was observed at the bars of the cage, 

 actively employed in feeding its young, which, by an instinct hardly inferior to 

 reason, it had thus succeeded in discovering. — Gloucestershire Chronicle. 



Relationship of the Dipper (Cinclus) to the Ouzels (Merula). — Young 

 Garden Ouzels (Merula hortensis) are very similar in appearance to the Dipper, 

 the more so as their tails are not then full-grown, and as they frequently cock 

 their tails in the same manner as the Dipper. Their close relationship then 

 becomes evident, though, under other circumstances, the claims of the Dipper to 

 rank in the Thrush family has more than once been questioned. A Garden 

 Thrush, it is true, has not, to a casual observer, many points in common with 

 the Dipper, but the affinity is obvious through the Ouzels. The young of the 

 latter, in fact, if seen beside a rocky stream with their short tails cocked in the 

 manner of the Dipper, might, in the first instance, be mistaken for the latter 

 species, so great is their resemblance. Another point in which the Garden Ouzel 

 approaches the Dipper, is its partiality to water, the difference being, that it 

 prefers ditches and stagnant pools concealed by thick foliage to rocky and pebbly 

 rivulets, and, of course, that it never swims. — Ed. 



Distribution of the Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlusj in England.— In 

 No. ix., for June (Vol. II., p. 164) of The Naturalist, the Editor informs us of 

 an instance of the recent occurrence of the Cirl Bunting in Yorkshire, and I have no 

 doubt but that he is right in supposing this to be the first specimen on record which 

 has been met with so far north. It is not, however, true that it has hitherto 

 been confined to Devonshire and the other counties on the southern coast. Many 

 years ago I obtained two specimens at East Garston, near Lamborne, Berkshire ; 

 they were male and female, and a nest with two eggs were procured at the same 

 place — the only instance I have known of the latter having been met with in 

 Britain. I still possess one of the eggs : the other I gave to my friend the Rev. 

 Nathaniel Constantine Strickland. It resembles, but is easily distinguished 

 from, the egg of the Yellow Bunting. I was directed to the birds by their 

 peculiar note, a sort of sharp chirp, but which I cannot describe, having only 

 heard it that once, so long ago. I had the birds preserved at Oxford. Since 

 thenj two or three years ago, I shot one out of a flock of Yellow Buntings, near 

 Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, and on the borders of Devonshire. This was in the 

 middle of winter. I looked for more, but could not procure any. It therefore 

 seems to associate with the Yellow Buntings as well as to resemble them. This 

 fact — which, as far as I am aware, has not been mentioned before — seems to 

 strengthen the supposition of Mr. Wood, that they may have been mistaken for 



