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Tue Zootocist—Janvary, 1872. 2909 
entomologists have been long familiar, and this is the manner in which 
species, which up to a certain date had been very rave and only chance 
visitants, all at once, without any assignable cause, become comparatively 
common. For instance, it is not many years since the gray phalaropes 
which had been obtained on our coasts might easily have been counted. 
They now present themselves in such numbers at the time of their autumn 
migration as to suggest that there had been a permanent deviation in their 
line of flight. Another bird, the Japanese thrush (the White’s thrush of 
Yarrell), until quite recently, had only been noted in one or two historical 
instances. By showing itself in England twice during the year, on the 
Mendips in January and in Norfolk in October, it gives promise that before 
long it will no longer be considered the most unexpected rarity on our bird 
list. Such changes as these are difficult to explain, but the observant 
naturalist will know that they are to be expected; he will also be prepared 
to find that familiar migrants are often capricious in the quarter of our 
island they select to visit in greatest numbers. One year woodcocks are 
quite scarce in Devon and Cornwall, while plentiful in Lincolnshire and 
Norfolk. In the autumn of 1871 a bird very seldom seen on the western 
coasts, but well-known on the eastern, the greenshank, as if by compensation 
for the absence of the woodcock on a preceding season appeared, plentifully 
in Devon. Another instance of a capricious migration is furnished by the 
quail: their abundance in the West and South-West of England in 1870 
made it likely that they would be met with again in no inconsiderable 
numbers the following season, as birds which had escaped the sportsman 
would naturally return to the place of their birth, but the writer of this 
notice having made inquiries in his own district, where quails were plentiful 
in the previous year, has heard of only a few instances of the bird during 
the autumn of 1871. The last heard of was obtained on the Blagdon Hills 
towards the end of November. The winter months are the normal time for 
the visit of the quail to the West of England, single birds being seen 
usually in December and January, in years when no quails had been noticed 
during the summer and autumn. ‘The year 1871 will be chiefly remem- 
bered by British ornithologists by the occurrence of a flock of great bustards 
in Devonshire in January, and by the appearance of single examples of that 
noble bird in other parts of the kingdom. Salisbury Plain, their ancient 
traditional home, was revisited by the bustards, and two were obtained in 
that district. Another is recorded as having been shot in Middlesex, 
another in Northumberland, while two out of the Devonshire flock of seven 
fell victims to the gun. The year did not produce many rare waders. 
Beyond a pair of pectoral sandpipers, which were shot in North Devon, and 
a yellowshank* in Cornwall, there is not much to record: For years there 
* Thave much hesitation as to the correct manner in which to spell this word. 
From the analogy of ‘‘redshank,” “ greenshank,” it seems best to write it as I have 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. VII. F 
