The Zoologist — February, 1873. 3401 



weather at the time was very disturbed. On the 8th, Sunday, a 

 very heavy gale, amounting in some places to a hurricane, swept 

 along the west, the south and south-east of England; and also on 

 the 9th and 10th there was a heavy gale from N.E. on the coast of 

 Durham and North Yorkshire. These storms were scarcely felt in 

 North Lincolnshire, although their course was completely round 

 us. On the lOlh a friend, shooting in the marshes, flushed either 

 ten or eleven shorteared owls from a patch of rushes. Since this 

 date, also, I have nearly daily put up one or two on the drain- 

 banks. 



Longtailed Tit. — I lately saw, flitting along one of the old 

 hedgerows in the marsh, a flight of these agile, graceful little 

 fellows. It was a somewhat unusual situation for them to be 

 found in, and a long way from the thickly-wooded districts they 

 frequent. This made me think they might perhaps be a migrating 

 party moving southward from some northern station. There was 

 one, hanging upside down on the end of a twig, which undoubtedly 

 belonged to the northern race or variety, as the little fellow's head 

 was quite white, without any shade or tint of rosy colour, as in the 

 Acredula caudata rosea of Blyth, our common English type. 



Green Sandpiper. — November 4th. A pair seen together, feed- 

 ing along the " warp" of a marsh-drain. 



Snow Bunting. — November 7lh. Many large flocks on the 

 stubbles. 



Water Rail. — There was an undoubted and very considerable 

 arrival of water rails about the last week in October or early in 

 November: these were principally the young of the year. I found 

 them in'all sorts of strange places, often where least expected: 

 several in the small, shallow ditches bordering the highways. In 

 Norfolk, this species appears as a regular migrant in the spring and 

 autumn.* This is the first occasion, however, I have noticed any 

 direct augmentation at this season of the ranks of our local and 

 resident water rails. 



Golden Plover. — November 15th. Several large flocks passed 

 across the marsh this morning. Our Lincolnshire golden plover 

 particularly the early arrivals, are, I always consider, finer and 

 larger birds than the average : thus eight, which I killed by a 

 "right and left" from a passing flock this morning, average nine 



* 'Birds of Norfolk,' vol. ii. p. 404. 



