3544 The Zoologist — June, 1873. 



and it is remarked in Yarrell's * History of British Birds,' that " the 

 examples from the Hebrides, where the species is very numerous, 

 are smaller and darker than those from the mainland." There is a 

 note about the fieldfare, which corroborates an observation I have 

 often made and often repeated to incredulous ears. I will quote 

 Mr. Cordeaux before I give ray own experience : — 



" In severe winters, when there is a scarcity of food, flocks of fieldfares will 

 frequent the fields of Swede turnips, and, like the rook, drill holes into the 

 bulbs. I have shot them in the very act, and found their stomachs quite 

 full of the pulped Swede. This is a bad habit, for it lets the frost into the 

 root and subsequently rots it. Wood pigeons have the same trick; but 

 I believe these latter never attack a root uuless previously injured by 

 insects or the bite of hares and rabbits : their beak is not strong enough to 

 penetrate the hard riud of a frozen Swede. Fieldfares come from great 

 distances on winter evenings to roost in some favourite place ; a plantation 

 of young larch having much rough grass in it is greatly in demand for this 

 purpose : they roost, as a rule, nearer the ground than the redwing : I have 

 known them roost on the ground like larks, both amongst grass and in shorn 

 stubble."— P. 21. 



It is the latter habit 1 have observed : Nunhead Cemetery rises 

 into a little hill covered with very coarse grass ; to this spot the 

 fieldfares repair on a winter's afternoon, often coming for an hour 

 or more, and in a straggling flight, from two or three to a dozen at 

 a time, from the turnip-fields at a distance, and here they roost 

 both on the shrubs and in the grass. 



The immigration of goldcrests (p. 37) from the continent in 

 autumn preceding that of the hooded crows, woodcocks, and short- 

 eared owls, induces us to wonder how such delicate and fragile- 

 looking creatures can cross the North Sea, but it is now a fact as 

 well established as that of the woodcocks themselves, and a fact 

 so familiar to dwellers on tlie east coast of Yorkshire and Lincoln- 

 shire, that they have acquired the name of" woodcock's pilots." 



The mention of "/a;"^e^oc/:s of waxwings" appearing in Holder- 

 ness (p. 70) appears scarcely less remarkable. 



The wood lark appears to be unknown in the Humber District; 

 Mr. Cordeaux has never met with it in North Lincolnshire. 



The snovvflake [Ember iza nivalis) usually arrives in flocks from 

 the middle of October to the end of November, and leaves in 

 February or early in March : Mr. Cordeaux observes (p. 47) that 

 these hardy but beautiful little arctic birds will find food, and will 



