1738 The Zoologist— July, 1869. 



and has quite a human sound, like a good-humoured chafEng laugh — 

 Hah, hah, hah — hah-a-a. 



Slone Curlew. — April 28lh. When driving across the Crosby Com- 

 mon, near Ashby, about eleven o'clock on the night of the 28th, I 

 heard the stone curlews calling. This species is yet, I am glad to say, 

 comparatively common in this locality ; and, I am told, twenty to 

 thirty may be seen in the course of a day's walk. Some years since 

 they were, however, much more abundant. 



The great sand commons of Crosby and Frodingham, with their 

 adjoining warrens, were, till very recently, the haunt of many birds 

 DOW extinct, or becoming very rare in England. This wild land in 

 some respects resembles the " breck " district of Norfolk, differing, 

 however, in its many pools and swamps, fringed with low brushwood, 

 and to a considerable extent overgrown with rank aquatic vegetation, 

 once the stronghold of the bittern, which is yet occasionally seen in 

 the district, but at long intervals, and I am afraid is fast verging on 

 extinction. The ruffs and reeves, once numerous, are now probably 

 extinct: the spotted crake is not uncommon. In the autumn the low 

 marshy portions are the favourite retreat of the shorteared owl, and, 

 I am informed, the almost incredible number of thirty have been seen 

 on the wing together. In the woods of spruce and oak (one alone is 

 four thousand acres in extent), which extend for miles to the south 

 and west of this wild country, woodcocks breed; and some of the best 

 woodcock shooting in the country is to be found here. Some years 

 since, on a neighbouring estate, eighty-five were killed in one day ; 

 sixty on the following. Woodcocks are very partial to oak woods, 

 and their presence ma}' be known by examining the dead leaves under 

 the oaks, as these birds, in their search for grubs and insects, turn 

 over the dead leaves, laying them with great regularity in the same 

 position, but the other side upwards. Stock doves are not uncommon, 

 breeding in the warrens in deserted rabbit-burrows. By some they 

 are called sand doves, and the natives have an idea they are distinct 

 from the stock dove of the woods, which nests in holes of trees, or on 

 the tops of pollards ; they admit, however, that the only difference is 

 in the size, the sand dove being the smaller of the two. The lively 

 and chastely-coloured wheatear is very abundant, flitting from stone 

 to stone, or perched on the common walls : these walls are built of 

 the dark lias clay, and have a very curious appearance, as they are 

 studded thickly with that characteristic lias fossil, Gryphaja incurva, 

 Sow. 



