2932 Tue ZooLocist—FrEBrRuary, 1872. 
Scaup Duck.—December 5th. About two hundred off the creel* 
this morning. This flock was composed of males and females in 
about equal numbers; and, as far as I can make out with the help 
of the glass, were all in the mature plumage. 
Redshank.—December 9th. I shot a most beautiful old male 
from the drain close to our railway-station this afternoon. The 
redshank has been rather plentiful on the flats during the autumn. 
One of our shooters was recently watching late at night near the 
Humber for ducks, and, after remaining several hours in one place 
without getting a shot, was preparing to leave, when his eye was 
attracted by a dark spot on the muds, which he thought he had 
not previously observed: so, more, as he said, “to get his gun 
off,” he let drive at it, and on going to the spot, picked up, 
greatly to his astonishment, two fine curlews, six redshanks, six 
dunlins, and two knots, several wounded birds escaping into the 
water. 
Hooper Swan.—December 12th. A flock of about twenty-three 
hoopers passed up the river this morning; they flew within a short 
distance of the New Holland jetty. Another small flock was seen 
on the same day. 
Hooded Crow.—These crows roost in the evening in the small, 
boggy and almost impenetrable plantations near our beck, where 
on moonlit nights, when duck-shooting, I have disturbed them by 
hundreds. The ground under their favourite trees is strewn with 
their castings or pellets: these I find mainly composed of the 
outer skin or bran of grain, broken marine shells, and fragments of 
chalk-stone. 
Wild Duck ( Variety).—December 15th. Saw four wild ducks 
feeding in an oat-stubble field this morning, and, as I was on horse- 
back, got very near them before they rose; three were drakes; the 
fourth a duck almost pure white, the shoulders and wing-coverts 
alone of the normal colouring. 
JoHNn CoRDEAUX. 
Great Cotes, Uleceby, Lincolnshire, 
December 29, 1871. 
