200 Fringillidce. 



near Salisbury in 1832 from Mr. Marsh ; and I have myself shot 

 it at Old Park, on the topmost spray of a copper beech in the 

 garden (as I before mentioned in this volume, p. 39). Of later 

 years Major Spicer wrote me word that a specimen in good 

 plumage was picked up dead in Spye Park in October, 1876 ; 

 Mr. Alexander informed me that one was killed by his gardener 

 at Westrop House in February, 1877. The Kev. G. Ottley re- 

 ported, and courteously sent for my inspection, one killed at 

 Luckington Rectory in December, 1878 ; and in the same month 

 the coachman at Old Park reported another specimen seen there 

 busily engaged with the berries in some hawthorn-bushes. Mr. 

 W. Stancomb, jun., has seen it at Bayntun ; Mr. G. Watson 

 Taylor reports that it frequently nests at Erlestoke ; Mr. Algernon 

 Neeld says that there are always a pair or two in the grounds at 

 Grittleton ; and Mr. Grant has furnished me with a list comprising 

 thirty specimens which have been killed in the neighbourhood 

 of Devizes, and have come into his hands for preservation. While 

 in the south of the county Lord Heytesbury reports one killed 

 in the water meadows on his estate, within the last four or five 

 years. Lord Arundell says a flight of male birds with reddish 

 heads and handsome plumage visited Wardour some time since. 

 Lord Nelson possesses a specimen killed at Trafalgar. Mr. W. 

 Wyndham says it is common at Dinton ; and in short, the Rev, 

 A. P. Morres says that though formerly looked upon as a rare 

 straggler in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, it has now become a 

 frequent visitor there, and gives evidence for belief that it occa- 

 sionally breeds in the district round Warminster. My friend the 

 Rev. G. S. Master, until lately Rector of West Dean, bore testi- 

 mony to their annual occurrence in his garden ; on one occasion, 

 in 1877, accompanied by a family of five young ones, where- 

 to the indignation of his gardener they attacked the peas with 

 much chattering and screeching, and committed no small havoc 

 in a very short time. So that when Mr. Seebohm says there is. 

 no authentic account of its breeding in the West of England,* I 

 think he is mistaken, for both North and South Wilts claim it as. 

 * British Birds/ vol. ii., p. 57. 



