90 THE BIRDS OF OXPOEDSHIRE. 



to Banbury^ the young- from which were seen by Mr. W. 

 Wyattj in a cage, and another was reported to have been 

 found in a shrubbery at Bodieote in 1878^ since which date 

 many instances of these birds having" been seen in spring and 

 summer have come under my notice, A pair stayed for some 

 time in a garden at Kingham, but departed withoiit breeding 

 (W. "W. Fowler, 3IS.). In the neig-hbourhood of Standlake 

 the Hawfinch occurs frequently ; a specimen was caught near 

 Gaunt House in May, 1883, and a young bird of the year was 

 brought in by a cat on the i6th July, 1876 (W. H. Warner, 

 3IS.). The late Lord Say and Sele^s keeper at Broughton 

 Castle told me in 1881 that Hawfinches had bred there for 

 the last two or three years, and he had shot the young- just 

 after they left the nest, being- requested to do so by the gar- 

 dener, whose peas they had ravaged. It has been seen by the 

 Rev. H. A. Macpherson in May in Wychwood Forest, where 

 I eaug-ht a glimpse of one in June, 1 882. At Shotover Hill 

 a nest and eggs were taken by Mr. W. C. Darbey in 1885, 

 and a brood of young were reared close to the house at Nune- 

 ham Park in 1887 (E. W. Harcourt hi lit.). At Bodieote I 

 saw one in March, 1887, and a pair shot there at the end of 

 the month probably intended to breed. In the following year 

 a pair were again observed in the same place on the 15th 

 April, but the nest was not discovered. 



In the winter of 1878-9 a few specimens were procured in the 

 north of the coimty, and in that of 1 880-1 they were unusually 

 abundant, about twenty being taken to the Banbury bird- 

 stuffers, most of which were picked up dead in a starved con- 

 dition. That these birds were migrants is tolerably certain, from 

 the fact that all of them were very much more brightly coloured 

 than our home birds, and this remark holds good of other speci- 

 mens killed here in different winters. Where these immigrants 

 can have come from is not clear, since specimens from Northern 

 Europe are said to be dull coloured, and but slightly brighter 

 than British examples, the very brightly coloured birds being 



