OTES 



INCREASE AND DECREASE IN SUMIER- 

 RESIDENTS. 



Our Readers are reminded that a Schedule relating to this 

 inquiry was sent out with the March issue of the Magazine. 

 We hope that every Reader who is able to give any information 

 on the subject, will fill in the details and return the Schedule 

 by the end of the breeding-season. Further cox3ies of this 

 Schedule, as well as of that for the Land-Rail inquiry, will 

 be supplied on application. The Editors. 



JAY IMITATING THE '' DRUMMING " OF THE SNIPE. 



As an imitator of alien sounds the Jay {Garrulus g. rufitergum) 

 is notorious, and moreover possesses notes of his o^^^l both 

 harsh and beautiful. But though fully aware of his faculty 

 in this respect, I was nevertheless surprised to hear one 

 imitate, and imitate very well, the *' drumming " of the 

 Snipe {Gallinago g. gallinago). However, there was no doubt 

 about it. 1 was standing in some marshy ground watching 

 the Snipe as they circled round, when a Jay appeared and 

 settled in a hedge some fifty yards from where I was standing. 

 There he remained for some time preening his feathers, when 

 to my surprise I heard the " drumming " sound proceeding 

 not only from above, where the Snipe were still circling, but 

 also from the hedge. Not satisfied that a Jay was capable 

 of reproducing so peculiar a noise, I watched his movements 

 the more carefully, and was ultimately able to observe that 

 as he moved from one part of the hedge to another, so the 

 sound proceeded from just that part in which he had settled. 



H. Eliot Howard. 



GOLDEN ORIOLE IN CO. TYRONE. 



Messrs. Sheals, taxidermists, have received a female Golden 

 Oriole {Oriolus o. oriolus) from Coalisland, co. Tyrone, which 

 was found dead and brought in by a dog on May 11th, 1913. 



Wm. C. Wright. 



CIRL BUNTING IN ESSEX. 



With reference to the note by Mr. J. H. Owen (Vol. VI., 

 p. 372) on Cirl Buntings {Emheriza cirlus) breeding in Essex, 

 it may be worth recording that I saw on June 4th, 1910, a 

 male Cirl Bunting in Wrabness parish, Essex. It was sitting 



