9280 
Water Pirir. 
Throat and sides of neck whitish, 
changing into tawny on the breast; 
under parts white, with a few faint 
streaks on the flanks. 
First primary shorter than next 
three, which are about equal in length. 
Tertials $ths of an inch shorter than 
longest primary. 
Birds. 
Rock Piprr. 
Sides of neck same as the back; 
throat, breast and all under parts yel- 
lowish white; on the breast thickly 
striped with dark brown. 
First primary the longest; the next 
three successively shorter. 
Tertials barely {th of an inch shorter 
than longest primary. 
They are also very distinct from A. Ludovicianus, which in colour is almost exactly 
like the meadow pipit, and has the first primary the longest. One specimen was 
killed near Worthing and the other on the beach near Brighton, where the tide flows 
in, forming several large pieces of water. I suppose this is the first recorded occur~ 
rence of this species in our country.—John Pratt; 44, Ship Street, Brighton. 
Note on the Mountain Linnet or Twite-—I was surprised at seeing in this neigh- 
bourhood to-day (August 16th) a flock of the mountain linnet, numbering forty or 
fifty birds. They were sitting on the “stovks” of wheat in a field near the Humber, 
and I shot one out of the flock to verify them: it turned out an old female bird. 
Flocks of these linnets may be often found in the winter months, feeding in the 
stubble-fields and salt marshes on the Lincolnshire coast. ‘They have always, how- 
ever, been associated in my mind with winter weather, their single sharp notes instine~ 
tively reminding me of snow and sleet sweeping over the fields, and a cold wintry 
sky, instead of the thermometer ranging as high as 102°, as it did to-day. I have 
never seen the mountain linnet so far south as this county so early in the season. 
Perhaps some of the able writers for the ‘ Zoologist’ can say if this is an unusual 
occurrence.—John Cordeaux ; Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnshire. 
Food of the Starling—Rovks and starlings have suffered much from the dry 
weather, and I never knew our friends the rovks commit greater depredations amongst 
the ripening corn than in this season. For some days lately 1 have seen a large flock 
of starlings feeding in a field of green vetches, just in pod, and so much attached were 
they to this particular field, that when put up they would only fly for a few yards, and 
commenced feeding again as greedily as ever. An old labourer remarked to me, to 
use his own words, “ Siarns are getting no end of them tares, sir,” and I almost sus- 
pected he might be right, and that the starlings, having been deprived of much of 
their usual food by the intense drought, were driven to find a substitute in the tares. 
So I shot two for examination, and on opening them found the stomach crammed with 
iusects,—the remains of several earwigs and some small bronze-winged beetles; the 
rest a mass of a large green Aphis. On examining the vetches, I found the stems 
literally crowded in masses with this green nuisance; and these, with an occasional 
beetle, &c., appeared to be the entire food of the starlings.—Jd. 
Note on the Occurrence of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker at Reading.—On the 
morning of the 5th of September, 1864, I saw a beautiful male specimen of that 
somewhat rare bird, the lesser spotted woodpecker (Picus minor), in a small but quiet 
suburban garden on the outskirts of the town of Reading. When I first saw the bird 
it was on a small apple tree, distant only about twelve paces from the dwelling-house 
attached to the garden aboye mentioned. After thoroughly investigating the tree on 
which I first saw it, the woodpecker similarly visited two other apple trees in succession, 
