Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Announcements , 6^c. 113 



the hen bird, and two of them hatched. A bird which I saw last 

 month was one of the produce : I should judge it, by its size, to 

 have been a female. I do not remember any parallel instance of 

 such disregard of the proximity of human habitations by these 

 birds being noted in any work oil ornithology. The nest was of 

 the Eagles^ own construction, and not a deserted nest of another 

 bird, as I should rather have expected. 



Yours, &c., J. W. P. Orde. 



To the Editor of ' The Ibis.' 



5 Peel Terrace, Brighton, Nov. 10, 1860. 



Sir, — I send you one or two ornithological notes for the past 

 year, which has been most disastrous for birds. In vain we have 

 looked for the countless streams which usually pass down to the 

 sea at the period of the autumn migration. 



It is the same with the Sussex bird-catchers : their success is 

 unusually small. In the spring, the rain prevented many birds 

 from breeding. I witnessed the efforts of a pair of Pious viridis 

 to do so. Once they were driven out by Starlings ; twice, after 

 cutting deep holes with great labour, the wet obtained an en- 

 trance and filled the chamber ; at last they gave up in despair. 

 The like fate was that of many other birds. 



In the Isle of Wight I saw a young Cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus) 

 killed, September 18th ; it had not obtained all its tail-feathers. 



Near Southampton a fine cock Pastor roseus was obtained 

 this summer. Some Starlings were feeding in a cherry-tree, and 

 a man fired into the flock to protect his fruit, when he picked 

 up this bird among the dead. 



A Sylvia iithys was caught alive at the back of my house on 

 October 2Gth, and two more have been since shot on the sea- 

 shore ; in fact, specimens are obtained every year here. 



The Serine Finch {Fringilla serinus ?) has been taken near 

 Brighton; and I am quite convinced that this bird ought to be, 

 and soon will be, included in our list of British birds, as I am 

 told of three other instances of F. sei'inus having been caught 

 by Brighton men, and cast aside from ignorance of its value, — it 

 having been hitherto supposed to be a mule of some kind, escaped 

 from confinement. 



VOL. ITT. I 



