Birds. 9793 



and supposing it must be one of his own chickens straved from its mother, he spent 

 some time in searching for i(, and the foster-pnrents did not leave it till the last 

 exlremity. He left it with them, and of its after fate there was no information. This 

 instance was mentioned in my presence to my senior churchwarden, who immediately 

 . referred to a case in which, on his own farm, and under his own observation, a hen 

 partridge sat upon five common fowl's eggs laid in her nest, hatched them, and was 

 afterwards repeatedly, with her male, seen with three of the chickens by my informant 

 himself; but these three seemed to be all the brood, as he never saw any youn«- 

 partridges in company.— J". C. Alkinsun ; Danby, Grosmont, York. " 



Young Snipes.— In this district, as also on the warrens in Norfolk, snipes breed 

 commonly, not to say numerously. Last year, in June, two of my sons caught a voung 

 snipe as tliey were walking with me over the moois. It was fledged and about two- 

 thirds grown, but the bill only about half the length it would ultimately obtain. Eggs 

 from a different part of the moor were brought me the year before, and this year my 

 hoys spent some hours in looking for a nest, which, it was certain, was placed in a 

 rushy meadow near the beck in our valley. The sportsmen on the moors around, it 

 may be added, sometimes kill several couples of young snipes a-day in the earliest 

 part of the grouse season, and a year in which none are then met with venj rarely 

 occurs. I do not find our northern gamekeepers so ornithologically i;v„orant as your 

 correspondent (Z..0I. 9733) seems to do in the district he refers to. Wiiih us the "little 

 blue hawk" is strictly limited to the merlin; the kestrel is the "stand-hawk" or 

 " hover-hawk ; " the hen harrier has her proper name, and so on ; and my chief friend 

 in the "keeper" Hue is a fair ornithologist, a very shrewd intelligent man, and a good 

 farmer, as well as able in his own department.— /rZ. 



[I rather agree with the Rev. M. A. Mathew, that gamekeepers know little or 

 nothing of Ornithology. It is not very long since a nobleman sent me the head, legs 

 and wings of a cuckoo to name; he called my attention to the peculiar conforin'alion 

 of the foot, two toes being directed one way and two the other, and added, "I employ 

 four keepers, neither of whom saw anything of the kind before." I gave, as politely as 

 I could, the name of the bird, and in return lost a subscriber, and was pron'o'mCed " an 

 ignorant cockney." I quote this as an extreme case, but nearly similar cases are not 

 uncommon. Who_ has not seen cuckoos and green woodpeckers nailed to the 

 "keeper's tree" as '' vermin."— Edivard Neivman.'] 



Snipe nesting at Liphook.—l have received'two snipe's eggs from Liphook, where 

 they breed regularly, as do also teal— W. Jesse; Maisonette, Ingatestone, Essex, 

 August 3, 1S65. 



Snipes and Wagtails.— WMst out walking I put up a pair of snipes, on the borders 

 of a large piece of water : I think this (September 17tb) very early fur them to occur 

 with us. On the same day, whilst walking along the banks of the Thames, I saw vast 

 numbers of wagtails, I should say young birds of the year ; I think I could reasonably 

 say I saw between three and four hundred.- CAar/w E. Slubbs ; Henley-on-Thames 

 October 6, 1865. ' 



Curlew Tringa :j:hange of Plumage.— This is an interesting period for watching 

 the change of pluma"ge from summer to winter. I saw some curlew Tringa yesterday 

 (females), sent from Scilly, in a very interesting slate : the whole of the breast and 

 under parts partook of an equal mixture of white and red, whilst the back and upper 

 plumage had the cinereous feathers cropping out amidst the dark leathers, indicative 

 of the summer plumage. These specimens were evidently old birds, as the young of 



VOL. XXIII. 3 ^J, 



