554 The Zoologist— January, 1867. 



time, it became very tame, and would rush to the wires with the greatest eagerness and 

 take insects out of my hand. It ate blue-bottle and other flies, butterflies, moths, bees, 

 wasps and Lepidopterous larvae, and was specially fond of cockroaches. It would 

 seize, worry and eat an immense full-grown specimen with the most amusing ferocity, 

 and I have known it eat as maDy as fourteen in one night. It would also eat wheat, 

 barley and oats, biscuit, cake, apple, nuts, and bread and milk, but its favourite food 

 was insects. It lived in apparently perfect health for six months, and then died very 

 suddenly. — //. H. Crewe. 



Whales off the Isle of Wight.— Last week some whales passed by here, which 

 unfortunately I did not see, but heard a coast-guardman say they were " either whales 

 or 'black-fish.'" The following notice of the occurrence appeared in our local news- 

 paper : — " On Thursday (Nov. 29tb.) two Greenland whales (Balana myslicetus), passed 

 Venlnor, at an average distance from the shore of about one mile and a half, though at 

 one time they were not further off than a quarter of a mile. They were very good 

 samples of their class, and the volume of water thrown up by them each time they 

 came to the surface for respiration quite astonished those who took them for porpoises." 

 As I do not remember our beiug honoured with such a visit during some twenty years' 

 residence, the occurrence seems worth recording.— George Guyon ; Venlnor, Isle of 

 Wight, December 3, 1866. 



Ornithological Notes from Falkirk. — Redwings arrived with us much earlier than 

 usual : I saw a flock of them on the 2nd of November, and we have had them more or 

 less ever since: this flock occupied the top branches of some tall larch trees, and were 

 twittering like so many swallows : I shot one in the act. A company of seven swallows 

 passed overhead, going west on the following day. Woodcocks are plentiful on 

 Torwood grounds : I heard that Colonel Dundas and party killed, on the 9th of 

 November, fourteen couple, besides other game. A large flock of siskins, a bird which 

 I have not seen here for some years, was busily engaged amongst the catkins of the 

 alder trees in our marsh : to-day (November 19lh) I shot two, the one an old bird, the 

 other evidently a bird of the year. Immense flocks of wood pigeons are feeding on the 

 beech-mast. There is every appearance of a severe winter ; hard frost all to-day, 

 accompanied by a cold north wind. — John A. Harvie Brown ; Dunipace House, 

 Falkirh, November 19, 1866. 



Honey Buzzard in Aberdeenshire. — In the woods of Balogie, the property of Mr. 

 Dyce Nicol, M.P., there were shot a pair of honey buzzards, male and female, one by 

 the forester, the other by the gamekeeper. The female was shot on the nest on the 12th 

 of July last; her mate was killed about a week previous. Their stomachs contained 

 bees and honey. The nest was built in a tall fir tree, which was difficult to climb, 

 the trunk being smooth and branchless. The nest was about three feet in diameter, 

 very flat, and composed of twigs of various sizes (those uppermost being about the 

 thickness of a pipe-stalk), and covered with grass-roots. The eggs, two in number, 

 were about the size of those of the domestic hen, slightly tapered, their colour 

 resembling rosewood, blotched with very dark brown. I am obliged to Mr. 

 Robert Wilson, gunmaker, St. Nicholas Street, for the above information, to 

 whom the birds were sent for preservation. Only one other instance of 



