CORRESPONDENCE— GLEANINGS. GO 



Two or three Woodcocks have heen shot ; we never have many. Snipe 

 were driven away by the frost, the Carrion Crow also left ; I very 

 seldom see one of these fine birds during the winter, unless it should be 

 unusually mild. The few fine warm days at the beginning of last month 

 deceived the birds into opening their song. On the 1st I heard Hedge 

 Sparrow and Robin, on the 3rd Missel Thrush and Lark, and on the 8th 

 the Starling — if the long whistles and chattering of this bird may be 

 called a song. Song Thrushes opened on the 3rd, Chaffinch on the 6th, 

 Yellow Ammer on the 7th, and Blackbird on the 14th inst. On January 

 17th I purchased a fine male Peregrine Falcon, which had been shot thnt 

 morning close to the town of Banbury. It measured full 3ft. across the 

 wings. A Curlew was shot here in the autumn. This fine bird has 

 occurred several times in the neighbourhood. — O. V. Aplin, Bodicote, 

 Oxon, February 20th, 1880. 



Eider Ducks in Leicester. — Amongst other ducks in Leicester 

 Market, on Saturday, January 17th, were three Eider Ducks (Anasmollis- 

 sima, ) two females and one male. The male I purchased, and have since 

 stuffed.— Chas. Adcock, Taxidermist, Willow Street, Leicester. 



Midland Union of Natural History Societies. — The third Annual 

 Meeting will be held at Northampton in June next, in connection with the 

 Northampton Natural History Society. The date and other details will 

 be announced in the next number. Communications should be addressed 

 to the Hon. Sec, Mr. C. E. Crick, 1, Horsemarket, Northampton. 



" Birds of Europe." — The last volume of Mr. H. E. Dresser's 

 great work on the "Birds of Europe" is now in the printer's hands, 

 and will be ready for delivery to subscribers in about a month's time. 

 Some delay has arisen on account of the difficulty of arranging the order 

 of classification, but this has at length been surmounted. 



Artificial Diamonds. — Mr. N. Story-Maskelyne, of the British 

 Museum, announces (Februai-y 19th) that artificial diamonds have at 

 last really been produced. The gentleman who has had the fortune to 

 solve- a problem which has hithei'to defied every attempt to deal with it 

 is Mr. J. Ballantine Hannay, F.C.S., of Woodbourne, Bellensburgh, 

 and Sword Street, Glasgow. His process will shortly be communicated 

 to the Royal Society. 



The Oligocene Formation. — Some years ago, Prof. Beyrich pro- 

 posed the term Oligocene (slightly recent) for certain strata which on 

 the Continent are clearly intermediate between the Eocene and Miocene 

 Formations. In an important paper, read before the Geological 

 Society on February 4th, Professor Judd proposes to include under this 

 tenn all the " Fluvio-marine Series" of the Hants Basin, which he 

 divides into (1,) the Headon Group ; (2,) the Brockenhurst Series ; 

 (3,) the Bembridge Group ; and (4,) the Hempstead Series. By this 

 new grouping, the strata of the Hampshire Basin are brought into 

 exact correlation with those of France, Belgium, North Germany, and 

 Switzerland; and the whole series of fluvio-marine beds in the Isle of 

 Wight, which are shown to have a thickness of between 800 and 

 900 feet, are proved to be the representatives of the Lower and Middle 

 Oligocene of those countries. The use of the term Oligocene in this 

 country is advocated on the ground that by its adoption only can we 

 avoid the inconvenient course of dividing the fluvio-marine series 

 between the Eocene and the Miocene. 



