The Zoologist— June, 1873. 3543 



peculiarity or novelty, occurrences of the more uncommon species 

 are sure to present something worthy of recording; thus we have 

 this very remarkable note touching the last appearance of the kite 

 in Lincolnshire : — 



« Mr. Adrian told me (May, 1872) that about twelve years since he has 



sometimes seen four or five pairs of kites together on the river just below 



Lincoln. They used to come up to feed upon any floating garbage carried 



down from the city. About this period requiring a specimen, he one day 



took his gun and a young tame rabbit that had recently died, and went down 



to a hollow pollard willow which grew on the bank of the Witham. The 



rabbit was opened to show the flesh; and then, securing it by a string, he 



let it float out into the middle of the stream. Concealing himself in 'the 



hollow of the tree, he kept a sharp look-out down the river in the direction 



of the great woodlands where the kites nested, and he had not to wait long, 



for presently, at an immense distance, he descried one of these noble birds' 



slowly saihng and gjratiug on almost motionless wing up the stream towards 



his hiding-place, all the time, too, intently scanning the waters for any 



floating object. Arriving at last over the rabbit, it remained for one moment 



quite stationary, and then dashed downwards, at the same instant falling 



dead with expanded wings on the water. Thus by gun and trap the last 



of the Lincolnshire kites passed away."— P. 215. 



At p. 16 we learn that there have been numerous instances of 

 the occurrence in Lincolnshire of the great gray shrike {Lanius 

 exciihttor), but none (p. 17) of the redbacked shrike (Z. Collurio), 

 so common a migrant in the south of England; at p. 19 we read 

 that the missel thrush has become much more abundant within the 

 last ten years, and that it immigrates from the north, arriving in 

 flocks at the end of August or beginning of September. 



Mr. Cordeaux thinks (p. 22) that we have two races or varieties 

 of the song thrush {Tiirdus musicus), one our familiar garden friend, 

 the other a darker bird, almost as dark as a hen blackbird: on the' 

 8th of December, 1871, he put up a score of these birds from some 

 dry grass in a drain-bank close to the coast, and very far from either 

 trees or bushes. Mr. Gray, in his ' Birds of the West of Scotland,' 

 says he observed numbers of the same variety in North Uist, "taking 

 shelter in dry stone dykes, and hopping from one crevice to another 

 like disconsolate wrens." "I remarked," continues Mr. Gray, "par- 

 ticularly the unusually dark colour of their plumage, the birds' being 

 very unlike those brought up in cultivated districts where gardens, 

 trees and hedgerows attract the familiar songster and its allies;" 



