3014 THE ZooLoGist—APRIL, 1872. 
Sparrows commencing their noisy spring battles, and the herring 
gulls calling in the air just as they do in the breeding-season. 
Observed three gray wagtails and a pair of wood larks. 
Titmice.—Feb. 27th. Wind east. Came across an extraordinary 
flight of titmice, composed chiefly of the bluecap, which were 
flitting about among the trees and bushes, and every now and then 
descending in a body to the ground, hopping about and feeding 
among the grass just like finches. They were exceedingly wild 
and would not let me come near them, flying straight ahead, but 
every now and then down in the fields, and then off again. When 
they lad to cross a field they all went in a flock. I never saw so 
many together in my life before; there must have been far more 
than a hundred. Notwithstanding the severe gales and rain of 
late the blackbirds have been singing from daybreak till dusk. 
J. GATCOMBE, 
Durnford Street, Stonehouse, Devon, 
March 1, 1872. 
Ornithological Notes from North Lincolnshire. 
By Joun CorpeEaux, Esq. 
(Continued from Zool. 8. 8. 2982.) 
JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, 1872. 
Mr. Dickens begins one of his tales, I believe ‘ Bleak House,’ 
by the remark, “It was raining down in Lincolnshire”; and raining 
down in Lincolnshire it certainly has been for the last two months, 
with scarcely a day’s intermission, till our bleak and melancholy 
marshes, between water and mud, appear fast relapsing into their 
primitive and original state, differing from old times, however, in 
one striking particular—an almost total absence of bird-life; for, 
without exception, it has been the very worst season for wild ducks 
and waders ever known along the east coast. I have scarcely seen 
a flock of plovers, either golden or green, since the middle of 
December; no snipe or wild ducks; and on the flats the absence 
of all waders has been most remarkable: day by day, on traversing 
the embankment and sweeping the muds with my glass, I have come 
away without seeing even a solitary dunlin. Had it not been for 
the gulls, more numerous than usual, and the inevitable “ hoodies,” 
this district would have been nearly destitute of birds. 
a i i ce 
