NOTES ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 53 



AVES. 



Bird Life in Epping Forest and New Forest in the Spring. —Mr. 

 Frank Brown writes as follows in the Field of March nth: — " Some months 

 since you advised a correspondent who was desirous of studying bird-life to 

 visit Epping in preference to the New Forest, birds being more numerous in 

 the former, and my experience certainly supports your assertion. Perhaps 

 you may deem a brief account of a visit I paid to Epping Forest on Sunday 

 last (March 5th, iSgg), of sufficient interest to place before your ornithological 

 readers. Leaving the train at Highams Park station, I made my way to the 

 lake, and in a few minutes had on my list of birds the rook, jackdaw, starling, 

 oxeye, tit, and wren. At the waterside I had a most pleasing surprise A 

 small bird of a greenish-yellow colour rose at my feet, and joined its com- 

 panions in the branches of an adjacent alder tree. Not being sure of its 

 species, I brought my field-glass to bear on them, and found they were 

 siskins, the first time I had met with this bird in the forest. Moorhens 

 abounded, no less than nine being on the bank, one of them minus a foot, but 

 this did not seem to cause the birdary inconvenience, the stump being freely 

 used as it followed its fellows to the water, where it swam with one foot. 

 Passing on towards Chingford I noted a tree-creeper, long tailed titmouse (a 

 solitary specimen), hedge sparrow, chaffinch, mistle thrush, song thrush, 

 blackbird, and wood pigeon. The cheery spring note of the nuthatch came 

 from the summit of an elm by the roadside, and not far off the laughing cry 

 of the green woodpecker could be heard, nor was it long before I had the 

 pleasure of seeing its lovely plumage and noting its characteristic flight. 

 Connaught Water brought wild duck within my ken, and a carrion crow on a 

 tree near by was, no doubt, keeping a look out for a early egg. In Monk's 

 Wood I had the good fortune to get within range of a hawfinch. Generally 

 speaking, this bird is extremely shy, confining itself to the summits of the 

 loftiest trees. Robin redbreast was singing his plaintive ditty to the setting 

 sun as I made my way to the Foresters' Arms for a cup of tea, and a little 

 band of blue tits, with a marsh tit among them, sought shelter for the night 

 in a protective blackthorn bush. As I reluctantly left this glorious woodland 

 I heard the woodowl calling to the night, and blessed him for his quaint and 

 eerie cry." The Editor of the Field remarks thus on Mr. Brown's communica- 

 tion : — " By a curious coincidence, on the very day on which our corres- 

 pondent was making the above mentioned observations in Epping Forest we 

 were rambling round Lyndhurst Hill and Butts' Lawn, in the New Forest, 

 where, having in mind the recently published allegation that bird-life in the 

 New Forest is conspicuously absent, we noted the appearance of the following 

 species: — Nuthatch, pied wagtail, meadow pipit, thrush, blackbird, mistle 

 thrush, starling, chaffinch, woodpigeon, green woodpecker, greater spotted 

 woodpecker, great tit, blue tit, marsh tit, jay, sparrowhawk, rook, robin, 

 hedgesparrow, and wren. The time of year, of course, was not favourable for 

 the observation of many species, for none of the summer migratory birds were 

 there. Had it been otherwise the list of species would have been much 

 longer." 



Stone-Curlew or "Thick-knee" at Fowlness Island. -Mr. H. M. 

 Matthews, of Fowlness Island, wrote as follows to Dr. Laver, under date 

 March 24th, 1899 : — " With this please receive a bird, name to me unknown, 

 excepting as apparently belonging to the plovers. It was picked up yesterday 



