Ii8 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



1865, in the tackling of a heavy pair of sheers erected at Shoebury for the pur- 

 pose of dismounting a large gun. Early in July, 188 1, a nest containing ten eggs 

 (doubtless the produce of two birds) was found here by one of my brothers. 



Mr. C. E. Smith states (31. 52) that on August 26th, 1858, he noticed a white 

 specimen in a flock, and another with tail and wings of a dull cream-colour on the 

 l8th of the following month. In September, 1880, ]\Ir. TraA'is received from Cla- 

 vering a young and pure white specimen. I saw one here with the primaries of 

 one wing almost entirely white, on January 9th, 1877. A dark cream-coloured 

 variety, presented by Mr. C. Bai on, and a lighter cream-coloured variety, presented 

 hy Mr. S. Salmon, both killed at Saffron Walden, are in the Museum at that town, 

 as is also an almost white individual from Wenden, presented by Mr. Salmon. 

 Round Orsett, Mr. Sackett knows of several stuffed albino specimens. A variety 

 with a more or less brilliant chocolate throat, instead of black, is rather common. 

 I captured one on January 4th, 1877, and another with it very brilliant on 

 February 26th, 1878. 



Those who agree with the late Col. Russell on the Sparrow question would 

 have been gratified by a sight which was to be seen here in the early part of June 

 last (29. June 15). Upon the south-east corner of our house, in a position 

 which has been regularly occupied for many years past, was a half-finished Mar- 

 tin's nest. A short time previously this nest had been burglariously entered by a 

 pair of Sparrows, who took possession of it, undeterred by the fact that many others 

 of their kind in previous years had paid the penalty for this offence of being 

 shot by me. This year, however, one of the intruders met with a different 

 fate. For several days the hen was to be seen hanging by her neck from the nest, 

 swayed by the breeze, and suspended by a thread of horsehair some eight inches 

 or nine inches in length, which had somehow got twisted round it, — a warning to all 

 evil-doers of her kind. This occurrence singularly resembles a similar one de- 

 picted by a woodcut in Yarrell (37. ii. 93), which represents the sad fate that befel a 

 Sparrow which had built its nest in the ornamental frieze of the Rotunda, in Dub- 

 lin. Amongst the materials used for that purpose there chanced to be a woollen 

 thread, with a loop at one end. By some accident, the bird got its neck into the 

 noose, and, all its efforts to escape being in vain, was miserably hung below its 

 own home. In the instance now recorded, however, the bird was hung, not 

 below its own home, but below the home of a much more worthy bird which it had 

 " evicted," and had caught its neck, not in a noose at one end of a piece of twine, 

 but in a loop formed by a knot in the middle of a long piece of horsehair. Similar 

 occurrences are, I believe, not very rare. 



Chaffinch : Fr 171 gill a cxlebs. 



An abundant resident. White or pied varieties sometimes 

 occur. 



Albin figures (3. ii. 50) a curious variety having the head and neck, wings and 

 most of the tail-feathers white or nearly so. He saw it in the possession of a 

 Mr. Noble, who told him that " it frequented his brother's garden at Havering 

 Bower in Essex, where he used to feed it a long time before he could take 

 it," which he at last did on April 20th, 1732. 



In the Museum at Saffron Walden is a variety from Wenden, many years since 

 presented by Mr. S. Salmon. It has the whole of the under-parts, the tail and the 

 quill-feathers of the wing, pure white ; the crown and nape, faint grey ; the 

 back white, tinged with canary yellow, strongest over the tail and on the 

 shoulders ; wing-coverts pale brown. There is also an adult male, shot at Wal- 



