202 FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 



heaths near Wareham in Dorset, I noticed a strange little 

 bird, something like a meadow pipit, feeding hungrily on the 

 ground quite close to my feet. I called up a keeper to look 

 at it, and we both agreed that it was a bird which we had 

 neither of us seen before. I remarked that if it had been 

 summer time I should have supposed it to be a reed bunting, the 

 dark head being very similar to that common summer visitor. 

 When I got home I found a figure of it in Morris's ' British 

 Birds/ and there can be no doubt that it was a Lapland 

 bunting. Its remarkable tameness is not an uncommon 

 characteristic of this species, which, like the grey phalarope, 

 comes from the uninhabited wastes of northern lands, and 

 this peculiarity tends to confirm its identification, about 

 which I have no doubt myself. If not a rare visitor, it is very 

 rarely observed, and, as I believe that this is perhaps the first 

 notice of its occurrence in Dorset, I think it worth while to 

 send you this short account of it. F." [In Mansel-Pley dell's 

 " Birds of Dorsetshire," published in 1888, no mention is 

 made of the Lapland bunting. It is an uncertain visitor in 

 autumn and winter, usually found on or near the coast, and 

 occasionally in large flocks. Seen oftener on the east coast of 

 Norfolk and Lincolnshire, it is sometimes found in company 

 with snow buntings. ED.] 



(This was mentioned Proc. XXXIII., 234.) 



GRASSHOPPER WARBLER (Locustella noevia). Colonel F. 

 G. L. Mainwaring of Wabey House, Upwey, near Weymouth, 

 sends the following note : " I saw and heard a Grasshopper 

 Warbler singing (very similar song to some of the Cicadse I 

 have heard in India) in a Berberis bush in our shrubbery 

 yesterday between 4.0 and 5.0 p.m. A very shy bird : I 

 could not get nearer than six yards to it." This species is 

 also mentioned in Mr. Curtis' notes below. (See also Proc. 

 XXXIII., 234.) 



LITTLE AUK (Mergulm alle). Mr. B. Edmund Freame, of 

 The Chantry, Gillingham, Dorset, sends the following note : 

 " A Little Auk was picked up near this place on Feb. 2nd. 

 It is impossible to keep this Arctic bird alive in England, 



