NOTES. 385 



(loverts. greyish-black; cheeks and occipital spot, which were 

 just peiceptible, dark greyish black. 



Percy F. Bunyard. 



CROSSBILL NESTING IN NORTHUMBERLAND. 



I HAVE good reason for believing that more than one pair of 

 Crossbills {Loxia curvirostra) has nested in the valley of the 

 Tyne. Altliough no nest was found a pair of old birds was 

 observed feeding young ones a few years ago by an excellent 

 field ornithologist, while another pair of birds was seen in 

 another wood throughout the spiing and summer of 1905. 



J. S. T. Walton. 



AN OLD RECORD OF THE LITTLE BUNTING IN 



ESSEX. 



The following note, copied from my notebook, w)'itten at the 

 time, may be of some value : — In the second week in November, 

 1892, Mr. Keulemans, who was then living at Southend-on- 

 Sea, brought up some w^ork he had done for me, and told me 

 that he had seen an adult female Emberiza pusilla in very good 

 plumage, which a bird-catcher had caught alive near South- 

 church, and had offered him 5s. for it, which he refused. I 

 told him that he must see the bird-catcher again and buy the 

 bird for me. He wrote me that he had seen the man again, 

 but that he had sent it up with a lot of Redpolls to a bird- 

 fancier in Shoreditch. I \\'ent there to buy it, but ^^■as told 

 that it had died and had been thrown away. Mr. Keulemans 

 had figured the Little Bunting for me, and knew the bird 

 well, so I think there could have been no mistake, and that 

 it really A\as a Little Bunting. 



H. E. Dresser. 



MIGRATION OF HOODED CROWS. 



The wintering Hooded Crows {Corvus comix) were all gone 

 from Wye this year by March 14th. On March 20th I saw 

 one fly over north-east at 7.30 a.m., and another flying round 

 at noon ; W. B. Burgess saw' one on this day fly over south- 

 wards ; on the 21st, at 10 a.m., I also saw one fly straight 

 over southwards, calling at intervals. 



This is not the direction one \\'ould expect migrating Hooded 

 Crows to take in spring, as it approximates to the south- 

 westward direction followed in autumn. 



C. J. Alexander. 



