The Zoologist — Jdly, 1873. 36'15. 



some respite of late, and we may hope to be again cheered with their well- 

 nigh unrivalled song. The bullfinch was fast disappearing, and might have 

 become extinct but for the new law and gun license. Of the blackbird, 

 being a wary species, we have still a goodly number, and one has been 

 singing all the spring from the topmost branches of a tall poplar in the 

 High Street of the town, to the great delight of passers by, both pedestrian 

 and equestrian : its song has been heard as late as 8.20 p. sr. Though there 

 is a young but weU-fledged blackbird lying dead on the lawn, the old bird 

 (the parent, I know) is singing merrily perched on a tree overhead. The 

 only two species that have increased and multiplied, and that tenfold, are 

 the house sparrow and the starhng ; in fact, the latter was hardly known in 

 the Undercliff in my younger days, nor do I think they were to be met with 

 in any number till the building of Steephill Castle. In a walk of some two 

 or three miles about Wroxall and over the downs, on May-day, not a dozen 

 species were observed, and I neither saw nor heard the cuckoo ; but then 

 the whole of the copses, their favourite haunt, on the northern face of the 

 hills, have been cut down and grubbed up. Some noble and lofty pines, 

 too, in whose closely-matted branches and dense foliage a colony of sparrows 

 had their nests, have shared the same fate. The cuckoo was first heard in 

 the third week in April. I saw no swallows till the 30 th of April, the latest 

 period I have known them arrive (the earliest being the 2nd) ; I hear, how- 

 ever, that swallows were seen about the middle of the month at Godshill. 

 The first chiffchaff observed on the 30th of March ; but it was not until the 

 30th of April, when there was a sudden rise of temperature of some ten 

 degrees, that many were seen ; on that day both the chiffchaff and willow 

 wren were swarming in the garden, but their stay was short, as none breed 

 here that I am aware of, never having seen or found their nests. On the 

 3rd of May I saw five or six swifts hawking about the chffs near Dunnose. 

 A pied flycatcher, a rare bird in the island, was seen at Blackgang during 

 the first week in April. — Henry Hadfield ; Ventnor, Isle of Wight, May 16, 

 1873. 



Orangelegged Hobby in Essex. — Colonel Hawkins records, in a letter to 

 Dr. Bree, pubHshed in the ' Field ' of June 7, the occurrence of a specimen 

 of this rare bird at Alresford on the 31st of May, and adds, " My impression 

 is that the bird was blown over during the continuance of the N.N.E. gales 

 which had pi'evailed previous to that date. 



Strange Nest for the Hedgesparrow.^On Monday, May 12th, I was 

 looking for birds' nests, but with poor success, owing to the birds having 

 only just began to lay in this part of the country, though in the nests in 

 Hampshire many of the young birds hatched out a fortnight ago. Just as 

 I was giving up the search in despair, I dropped upon two eggs of the 

 hedgesparrow laid in a shallow depression on the ground at the corner of a 

 country lane. I mentioned this fact to a gentleman of experience in this 



