Letters, Extracts, Notices, &;c. 133 



what I wrote on the subject in "The Zoologist ' for 1896 

 (p. 427)? When describing the habits of a pair of Blue- 

 throated Warblers, I wrote : — " Presently, as I watched him, 

 the male of the pair sang in an ecstasy, for his plain-coloured, 

 mate, which I could see, was creeping and hopping about 

 among the growth of arctic birch close to where he settled, 

 and he ivas performing like a Robin. His head and neck, 

 were stretched up, and his bill pointed nearly upwards ; Ins 

 tail was flirted up and down, or held at rather less than a 

 right angle with his body, and his wings were drooped." 

 This peculiar attitude is not confined to the male while 

 actually courting the female, for I have known it assumed 

 by tw r o male Robins in rivalry in the presence of a female. 

 I extract the following remarks from one of my note-books 

 under the date March 30th, 1888 :— " Thus they faced each 

 other, singing in a shrill constrained tone, at a distance of 

 a couple of inches apart ; then cuffed at each other once or 

 twice, when one gave up and was chased by the other through 

 the shrubbery." A rough pen-and-ink sketch of one of the 

 Robins in this curious attitude accompanies the note. Ac- 

 cording to my experience, the body of the bird is not always 

 quite so upright as in Mr. Lodge's drawing. The bill points 

 nearly, but not quite, straight upwards, and the line of the 

 body from the chin to the belly forms a gentle uninterrupted 

 curve. But, of course, this may vary considerably in 

 different cases. Yours &c., 



O. V. Arnx. 



g IRSj _I n < The Ibis ' for 1901 (p. 517) I mentioned having 

 seen some Dotterels [Eudromias morinellus) on the top of a 

 mountain in Merionethshire on May 10th, 1901. On May 

 8th in the next year we went up this mountain again for the 

 purpose of looking for these birds. We searched a great deal 

 of ground without success, and at last, being balf-numbed by 

 the bitter gusts of icy wind (snow lying in patches about the 

 summit), we began to descend. When crossing a slope covered 

 with weathered stones interspersed with patches of grey- 



