2900 THE ZooLocistT—JANUARY, 1872. 
the islands, remaining till January, the wind got S.S.E. with fog, 
and continued about that quarter, which is about the best for 
warblers and jack snipes, till October 5th. 
September 20th. First jack snipes about this date. 
September 22nd. Pied and spotted flycatchers, birds of the 
year; the former scarcely ever occurring in Cornwall, but a regular 
autumn visitant at Scilly. Willow wrens and an immature red- 
backed shrike in the Abbey Gardens. 
September 24th. A pair of turtle doves and some stock doves 
at St. Mary’s, the former very tame and seen on several other 
occasions. First flock of starlings. 
September 30th. First golden plover seen. Wheatears getting 
scarce. Chaflinches coming to roost in the Abbey Gardens. 
October 3rd. A careful inspection of the island of St. Mary’s 
produced nothing of interest but the last quails. 
October 5th. Last day of the S.E. wind. We visited St. Mary’s 
again with a pack of wild dogs, thinking to find some landrails in 
the moors, and saw none, but in two small wet places, not more 
than a few yards across, we found enough snipes to bag three 
couples of full and no less than fourteen couples of jack snipes.* 
October 6th. On this and the following days three bartailed 
godwits, a common redshank, ring ouzel, stock dove, arctic tern, 
spotted crake and Schinz’s sandpiper were captured, the last I 
saw feeding on the mud by the fresh-water pool at St. Mary’s, and 
at first supposed it to be a jack snipe, until on taking flight it 
showed its white upper tail-coverts, like a little green sandpiper ; 
though flushed several times it uttered no note, and commenced 
feeding again immediately. It is curious that the only previous 
specimen from Scilly should have been obtained by Mr. Pechell 
on October 11th, 1854, and mine on October 10th, both birds being 
shot about the same place. 
October 6th to 9th. S.W. wind, with heavy rain, changing on 
the 10th to N.N.E., and 8.E. on the 11th, when St. Mary’s moors 
produced four full and eleven jack snipes and two wigeon, all fresh 
* A similar migration was observed on the Cornish moors some years ago at the 
beginning of October, when on the last day of an east wind and long drought I killed 
nineteen couples of snipes, most of them jacks, in the forenoon; the weather com- 
pletely breaking up at 2 p.m., with thunder and a flood of rain from the N.W. On 
both these occasions it wouid appear that the snipes migrated with the last of a 
favourable wind, as if foreseeing the rain, which would open up their winter feeding- 
grounds. 
