450 OBSERVATIONS ON 



Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in 

 the winter, they return again early in the spring, and 

 are, as it now appears, the first summer birds that come 

 back. Perhaps the mildness of the season may have 

 quickened the emigration of the curlews this year. 



They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheep- 

 walks ; but seem to descend in the night to streams and 

 meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts 

 do not afford them". 



THE SMALLEST UNCRESTED WILLOW WREN. 



THE smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiffchaff, is 

 the next early summer bird which we have remarked; 

 it utters two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow 

 woods, as to occasion an echo, and is usually first 

 heard about the 20th of March 14 . 



FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER. 



TH E country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or 

 churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, 

 is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as 



13 On the 31st of January, 1792, 1 received a bird of this species, which 

 had been recently killed by a neighbouring farmer, who said that he had 

 frequently seen it in his fields during the former part of the winter : this 

 perhaps was an occasional straggler, which, by some accident, was pre- 

 vented from accompanying its companions in their migration. MARK- 

 WICK. 



14 The spring birds having made their appearance I looked for the 

 Sylviu ntfa, and find it by no means scarce here. I saw two of them yes- 

 terday in one little wood, where they were reiterating their incessant 

 chink chink. One of them sat in the full sun within six or seven yards 

 of me, on the same branch of a young leafless tree, for a quarter of an 

 hour, moving very little, but occasionally from one twig to another. I 

 was perfectly satisfied from seeing it so near that it was the Sylv. rufa, 

 but to-day I desired my gamekeeper to shoot one in the act of chinking, 

 to remove all doubt on the subject. The bird now before me is decidedly 

 the Sylv. rufa, with the second feather a little shorter than the eighth. 

 Its legs are very dark, and so is its bill except at the base of the lower 

 mandible. The under wing coverts are dull yellow; a very pale ferruginous 

 tint on the sides ; the thighs and under tail coverts pale yellowish. 

 Spofforth, May 14, 1830. W. H. 



