732 The Zoologist — May, 1867. 



common ; in fact as far as my experience goes the scaup is a scarce 

 winter visitant : perhaps a severe winter is required to bring them. 

 The pochard and tufted duck frequent fresh-water ponds. On the 

 13th I counted in Aldsworth pond, near Stanstead (West Sussex), about 

 sixty pochards, as well as a pair or two of the tufted duck. I noticed 

 that these latter, as well as some of the pochards, seemed to keep in 

 pairs, male and female, feeding away from the rest. Mergansers (A7. 

 serrator) have been more numerous than for many years. They are 

 principally females and young males, though I have seen one or two 

 good plumaged males with the green head and perfect crest. One of 

 these which I dissected had in its stomach the remains of an eel that 

 might have measured ten or twelve inches in length when alive, — also 

 a small crab and a few pebbles. In a local paper there is a note of 

 some goosanders having been killed near Petworth. 



Kestrel. — A female kestrel, shot on the 1 9th, had in its stomach the 

 legs and other remains of two small birds, a lark and a linnet (?). 

 Probably the cold weather rendered their capture more easy, and at 

 the same time the regular prey of the kestrel, mice, scarcely ventured 

 out of their holes, and even then perhaps in a tunnel of snow. 



Bittern. — On the 23rd I saw a very fine specimen of the bittern, 

 in the flesh, recently killed at Binstead, near Arundel. 



Ring Dove. — January 23rd, and two or three days following, flocks 

 of ring doves passed W. to E., in the morning from 8 o'clock till 

 about 10. 



W. Jeffeky, jun. 



Balham, Chichester, February 9, 1867. 



Ornithological Notes from the Isle of Wight. 

 By Captain Hadfield. 



(Continued from Zool. S. S. 447) 



September, 1866. 



Bluethroated Warbler. — Though authors have hesitated in 

 admitting this species into our Fauna, others have been introduced 

 without a shadow of claim to rank as British, the passenger pigeon 

 for instance. Our list of birds truly requires docking, almost as much 

 as the list of butterflies before it was taken in hand by Mr. Newman. 

 But Sylvia suecica is, I think, now fairly entitled to rank as a British 



