Birds. 9467 



band, lie succeeded in a way I have often seen used by birdcatchers, and whicb 

 astonished me much when I first became acquainted with it. Swaysland and I think 

 the specimen is a male, but we are not positive as to the sex. Its total length is 

 7i inches, from tip of front claw to lip of hind claw 2^ inches. Four outer feathers of 

 its tail had been, as we suppose, shot away, viz., two dark and two light ones ; they 

 might have been gone a furtnight; the slumps of the new ones were just coming. 

 The two centre short feathers remained. It bad twelve feathers before its loss. Its 

 legs strike me as being very long, and the difference in size between it and a true 

 tree pipit (Antkus arboreus), which I saw by its side, was very great. The wing and 

 general appearance of the bird is quite thai of a pipit. It is the head of the pipits, as 

 the common bunting {Emheriza miliaria) is tlie head of the buntings. I particularly 

 remarked the moustache-like marks under the throat, which all the pipits have. 

 Birds killed at this time of year are in belter plumage than during the breeding 

 season. This Anlhus Ricardi has passed into the collection of Mr. T. J. Monk, jun., 

 of Lewes, Sussex, who came over from that place on purpose to see it alive, which be 

 did, as well as myself. I think there is no possibility of captivity having anything to 

 do with this specimen, being so rare, and conclude that this is a genuine instance of 

 its occurrence. It is the first that has ever come under my own personal observation. 

 I was therefore much pleased to handle and examine a really British-killed Richard's 

 pipit. Its dimensions, hind claw, &c., exactly agree with Yarrell, and are well 

 known to your readers, therefore I do not repeat them here. — George Daioson Roxvley ; 

 6, Peel Terrace, Brighton, January 21, 1865. 



Note on, a Deformity in the Bill of a Sky Lark. — A sky lark was shot near 

 Worthing on the 26lh of December, 1864, in which the bill had become very 

 curiously deformed, either from the effect of accident or from a morbid growth. The 

 upper mandible had assumed a spiral form, rendering it apparently quite useless, and 

 the lower mandible, which remained straight, had grown to nearly twice its natural 

 length, the extraneous length being composed of a narrow elongated horny substance, 

 protruding much beyond the upper mandible, and somewhat resembling, in miniature, 

 the lower mandible of the genus Rhynchops. Strange to say, this mallbrmed lark 

 was as plump as if his bill had been in no way defective.—/. H. Gurney. 



A Black Sparroiv. — On the 23rd of this month I saw a variety of the sparrow never 

 seen by me before: it was entirely black, the legs and bill orange. The bird was 

 feeding with others on a patch of horse-dung, and was not three yards from me. — 

 H. Blak(?-Kno.r ; Dalkcy, Co. Dublin, December 26, 1864. 



Partridges killed by flying against a House. — This morning (January 30th), as 

 I was sitting at my desk writing, the servant came in with a partridge that she said 

 she had just picked up in the garden-palh : it fell from the top of the house nearly on 

 her bead, as she was walking along. There were others fell at the same time, so she 

 informed me. We went at once into the garden, and with the help of a dog, found 

 five others, two of which were quite dead, one nearly so, another flew up, but was 

 shot, and one appeared to have nothing the matter with it, and was let fly off, after 

 we had examined it. I have since heard that another bird was seen, which must 

 have struck the house nearer the top, as it was seen amongst the snow on the ground 

 at the other side of the house. I examined one that we found quite dead, and the 

 bones near the breast are all broken to pieces, from wiiat I saw I suppose that the 

 birds were flying at a great rate, and something must have frightened them out of 

 their course and driven them into ibe way of the house-roof, which being covered with 



