CORRESPONDENCE. 21 



Short-eared Owls— all in November. Fieldfares did not reach us till 

 October 24th ; they are now very numerous in the meadows. On the 

 3rd inst. I observed several Grey "Wagtails along the river. I have not 

 at present heard of any Wigeon, but Teal were observed quite early 

 in October. A green Sandpiper was seen on the Swere about the 2nd 

 of September. Two Wbeatears have been killed this autumn, on 

 September the 23rd and October 13th respectively; this is a rare species 

 here. Of the late immigration of Great Grey Shrikes we have thus 

 far only had one example ; inside this bird we found the remains of 

 a Shrew. A correspondent to the Field, last week, notes the occurrence 

 of a Cormorant, at Wheatly. It was observed, during a snowstorm, 

 (on the 23rd ult., I think,) sitting on the church spire. Dr. Plott, in 

 his "Natural History of Oxfordshire," mentions a somewhat 

 similar case, more than two hundred years ago. He says of this bird : 

 " The Cormorant has been observed to come hither about harvest 

 time, whereof there was one killed from St. Mary's steeple, (tired with 

 a long flight,) August, 1675, and another young one taken up in Arncot 

 field fallen down in the corn, and brought me to Oxford." I have 

 heard of other instances which point to its habit of resting on 

 high places. About the 3rd of this month a Shag (Graculus cristatas) 

 was procured at Souldern. Mr. Wyatt, the taxidermist at Banbury, 

 kindly let me know directly he received it, so that I was able to 

 examine it in the flesh. "We noticed on the tongue a peculiar barb- 

 like process — doubtless of great assistance to the bird in swallowing 

 its slippery prey. Three great spotted Woodpeckers have been shot in 

 the neighbourhood, two of them, killed in July, were birds of the year ; 

 the other, a fine male, was procured inBroughton Park, about the end 

 of last month. Whilst walking along the Cherwell, on the 3rd inst., 

 a Sandpiper rose from the bank and flew up the river ; I fired, and the 

 bird fell winged in the middle of the stream. In a few seconds it 

 righted itself and swam to the bank, up which it crept. I went a 

 little way up the river, waded over, and returned to the place. I 

 found the bird lying on the bank, and to all appearance dead ; I then 

 saw that it was a fine specimen of the Green Sandpiper. However, on 

 stooping to pick it up, the bird fluttered into the water, and 

 immediately dived, and, although I searched till dark, I never saw it 

 again. Col. Montagu mentions a very similar case, and remarks, 

 " possibly it got entangled in the weeds, and was drowned ;" although 

 this habit is, I hear, well known to those accustomed to " wader " 

 shooting, still it may not be so to all Midland readers. I have only 

 heard of one Merlin this season — a very fine male, procured at Gaydon, 

 Warwickshire, early in the autumn. — Olivek V. Aplin, Bodicote, 

 Oxon, December, 1880. 



Spiders. — With warm days and clear nights during the autumn of 

 the year, we naturally had evening mists and heavy morning dews. In 

 my garden, two or three hours after sunrise, the cobwebs were a 

 beautiful and curious sight. I counted 200 of them on one small shrub. 

 The garden is less than an acre in extent, and some of the shrubs, such 

 as currants and gooseberries, had very few cobwebs ; but I calculate that 

 there cannot have been less than 50,000 of them in my small domain. 

 They were of three distinct forms : (1) the exquisite lace-work of the 

 Epeiras, the geometric spiders ; (2) the mass of crossed threads spun by 

 several species of Theridion ; and (3) the suspended sheets of the 

 Linyphias. I should estimate them at 5,000 Epeira, 5,000 Theridion, and 

 40,000 Linyphia. They stood as thick as possible on every evergreen 

 shrub, and on every yard of hedgerow, occupying nearly every square 

 inch of surface, yet nowhere interfering, and apparently all in peace 



