FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 175 



Owl is spreading. Three pairs have been killed under my 

 notice recently. These owls are destroying the nightingales, 

 and probably other night warblers." I corresponded with 

 Mr. S. H. Wallis on the subject of this bird, because it is 

 not a common bird, and I felt, too, some diffidence about 

 accepting the statement that a small bird like Carine noctua 

 would tackle anything the size of a nightingale. Mr. Wallis 

 was most patient in answering my pertinacious enquiries, 

 and wrote to me under date 17th April, 1916 : "I sent to the 

 Dorchester Museum offering a pair of Athene noctua which 

 were shot at Chickerell on Mr. Jesty's (County Councillor's) 

 farm. The Museum people said they had received three 

 already." Again, on the 23rd April Mr. Wallis wrote to me 

 " I can see Mr. Jesty, jun., for data. I heard yesterday that 

 Keeper Hicks (Middleton Estate, Bradford Peverel) shot one 

 eighteen months ago. A man working on the Park farm at 

 Hooke has seen them. They occupied a hole in a stump and 

 frequently pitched on a wall ; he said he could have caught 

 them, they were not a bit shy. Respecting the destruction 

 of nightingales, Howard Saunders in his Manual of British 

 Birds says they destroy thrushes. Nearly every little cover 

 about these parts had nightingales the year before last, but 

 last summer there was scarcely a pair here. My son, who is 

 in practice at Wrexham and keen on observing birds, tells me 

 the little owl is rapidly spreading and destroying the nightin- 

 gale, and I have been told by the keepers that they were vastly 

 more scarce, some kind of owl probably killed them." 



On going into the life history of this little bird, I fear he 

 must be put down as a murderer of all our evening songsters 

 and insectivorous birds, and I hope in the 1916 report, if I am 

 still responsible for these notes, to make some more extended 

 notes. (W.P.C.) 

 Circus pyargus (The Montagu's Harrier). 



8th August. At Handley Down W.P.C. and E.H.C. both 

 saw on different occasions a hawk which E.H.C. did think 

 was a Honey Bizzard (Pernis apivorus) when he first saw it, 

 because it looked so big ; however.it flew up into a tree, and 



