Tue ZooLocist—Marcg, 1872. 2993 
On the Gregarious Roosting of the South-African Colies—The very 
curious habit recorded in the ‘ Zoologist’ (S. 8. 2943), by the Rev. Murray 
A. Mathew, of the gregarious roosting of the longtailed tits, has an interesting 
parallel in the habits of the three South-African species of the genus Colius. 
The following is a translation of Le Vaillant’s account of the roosting of 
these birds, as given in his ‘ Oiseaux d'Afrique’ (vol. vi. p. 32):—* They 
assemble in the same bush to roost, and it is singular that they sleep 
suspended from the branches, with the head downwards, and that they then 
press so closely one against another that they form a mass comparable to 
the swarms of bees which one may see suspended like balls from the branches 
of trees.” Mr. Layard confirms this statement, from report, in his ‘ Birds 
of Africa’ (p. 221), and Mr. Ayres, from personal observation of Colius 
striatus,’ in the ‘ Ibis’ for 1864 (p. 859).—J. H. Gurney ; Marldon, Totnes, 
January 31, 1872. 
Clustering of the Longtailed Tit.— I can fully corroborate what 
Mr. Mathew says as to the clustering of the longtailed tit. The most 
remarkable instance of it which I ever heard of occurred at Blackwell, near 
Darlington. A birdstuffer named Noble saw on a fir tree what he thought 
was a pheasant: he fired at it, and immediately the mass dissolved into 
more than a score of longtailed tits: he told me that he thought he killed 
a dozen of them. ‘That this habit was not overlooked by Yarrell appears 
from the following statement in his ‘ British Birds’:—<‘‘ The young family 
of the year keep company with the parent birds, during their first autumn 
and winter, and generally crowd close together on the same branch at 
roosting time, looking when thus huddled up like a shapeless lump of 
feathers only.” (B. B., 1st ed., vol. i. p. 346.) —J. H. Gurney, jun.; 
February 1, 1872. 
- Waxwings in East Yorkshire——On the 3rd of November last an adult 
female waxwing was shot, by Mr. James Runton, out of a flock of birds at 
Aike, a township some few miles from Beverley. He said that seeing a 
flock of small birds on some hawthorn bushes, he fired a shot at them, and 
the result was the death of the above bird; but whether the flock was com- 
posed entirely of waxwings, or whether this was the only one amongst them, 
he could not say, nor did he know what the bird was until he came to 
Beverley a day or two following. There were also shot, on the 25th of 
January, two others, male and female, at Burton Agnes, near Burlington: 
these latter were both immature, and were accompanied by a third which 
escaped. The crops of all three contained haws.—F’. Boyes. 
Snipe “Drumming” on the 2nd of February.—Crossing a moor in 
the neighbourhood on the 2ud instant, I was surprised to hear a snipe 
“drumming.” I do not remember ever to have heard this at so early a 
date before. In my snipe-shooting days the first “drumming” of a snipe 
was the signal for ceasing to shoot: the average time for this was about the 
