616 NOTES FROM NEAR VIENNA. 



had met with a Nutcracker in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of Vienna. 



The Dipper (Cinclus aquaticus), too, appeared last year on 

 the brooks at Laxenburg, but again only when the cold weather 

 had set in. 



The passage of the Woodcock was also very irregular this 

 autumn, for these birds, which only frequent the low hilly 

 parts of Transylvania on migration, showed themselves there 

 in large numbers from the 10th to the end of October, and by 

 November the flight was over in those districts. In Hungary, 

 however, especially in the wooded plains east of Pest, I met 

 with some as early as September 12th, and the flight seems 

 to have lasted well into November, though there were never 

 many of them. 



Still more peculiar was their behaviour in Lower Austria, 

 for the first came to the Laxenburg park at the end of October, 

 after that there were but very few in this part of the country, 

 and by the middle of November none at all, the flight being 

 apparently over. I was therefore greatly astonished at finding 

 five of them in a little cover in the Wiener Wald near Laab 

 on November 28th, and at meeting with a great many in the 

 auen for some days after, the last on December 3rd. The 

 cold, however, which has now set in has probably put an end to 

 this abnormal appearance of the Woodcock. 



