The Hobby. 73 



be seen on the wing even after dusk on a summer evening. It 

 has been taken in many parts of the county, and I believe it to 

 be somewhat sparingly distributed annually throughout our 

 enclosed districts. I have also received many instances of its 

 nesting and rearing its young in various localities ; thus Mr. 

 Hayward has taken two young ones from a deserted crow's nest, 

 in August, 1839 ; and from the same tree in which the Hobbies 

 had reared their young the previous year ; this was in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Lavington, where he has subsequently seen them 

 almost annually. Mr. H. C. Forward, of Boreham Road, War- 

 minster, thought that the Hobby bred somewhere in his neigh- 

 bourhood in 1860, as a male, female, and three immature young 

 were shot between his house and Heytesbury. I learn from Lord 

 Nelson that it has been killed at Trafalgar ; from Sir H. Meux 

 that a pair were shot at Dauntsey about three years ago ; from 

 Mr. Herbert Smith that it has been observed lately at Bowood ; 

 from Mr. Gwatkin that it was killed at Tilshead in Feb., 1884, 

 and from Mr. G. Watson Tayler that it visits Erlestoke. Mr. Raw- 

 lence has a specimen taken on Lord Bath's property in Wiltshire, 

 while Mr. Stratton says they return regularly every summer to 

 the enclosures in the vale below him ; the Rev. G. Marsh used to 

 speak of them as not uncommon in the woods of Wilts, and has 

 repeatedlyhad the young brought to him both in the neighbour- 

 hood of Chippenham, and at Winterslow, near Salisbury, and they 

 have bred in the woods at Christian Malford ; moreover, I am 

 aware of two separate localities to which these birds now return 

 annually to breed, though, for obvious reasons, I think it better 

 not to describe them too minutely. Of later years the Rev. A. 

 P. Morres is able to say that in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Salisbury it is not uncommon ; nay, he might well call it a fre- 

 quent visitor; he generally notices it in his own parish of Brit- 

 ford more than once during the summer ; while Mr. Tyndall 

 Powell, of Hurdcott House, a keen observer of birds, has 

 remarked on the regular appearance of several Hobbies in the 

 months of September and October, as they waited on some dense 

 flocks of sand martins, which congregate at that period from all 



