The Zoologist — October, 1873. 8719 



but the next day, on giving it its liberty, I was rejoiced to see it fly 

 away, apparently as well and strong as if nothing had happened. 

 I think the young swift of the year is handsomer than the adult 

 one, so many of its feathers being delicately edged with a narrow 

 line of buffy white. Observed some young oystercatchers on the 

 coast to-day, and am glad to find young herons plentiful on the 

 mud-banks. E,obins have now returned to our gardens in the town, 

 and are already uttering their plaintive autumnal song. 



26th. Visited Torquay, where I remarked the first blackheaded 

 gull on the coast since the breeding season ; it was, I think, an 

 adult, which had entirely lost the black hood of summer. The 

 weather was very boisterous at the time, blowing a very stiff gale, 

 and on a rock a short distance from the shore, called the Shag 

 Rock, I saw no less than thirty or forty cormorants, all crouched 

 in a horizontal position, with their necks drawn back on their 

 shoulders, facing the gale, producing altogether a very strange 

 effect, considering these birds generally stand so erect. 



27th. Young gulls are now very plentiful in our harbour, and 

 I am sorry to add that one man shot eleven the other morning from 

 the rocks as they flew by, the prevailing gales bringing them so 

 close to the shore. 



28th. Saw the first tern on the coast: this is rather early, as 

 it is rarely seen here until September, and generally after a gale. 

 Wheatears are very numerous on the coast just now, which is 

 usually the case before their departure for the winter. 



30th. Again rambled along the coast beyond Bovisand, and 

 observed a single young redbacked shrike on the edge of the cliff 

 skirting the coast. Redbacked shrikes have been more plentiful 

 in our neighbourhood this season than I have known them to be 

 for some years past. 1 was much amused at seeing a young 

 herring gull make constant dashes at a cormorant in the water, 

 which had a large fish in its mouth, much too large to be swallowed 

 easily. Directly the gull made a dash, down would go the cor- 

 morant, and the moment it reappeared the gull would renew the 

 attack, until at last, after the most violent efforts on the part of the 

 cormorant, the fish disappeared in its capacious maw. In the 

 evening I found the great bunting numerous among the furze- 

 bushes on the cliffs, where no doubt they had come to roost; but, 

 strange to say, I did not see a single rock pipit during the day, 

 although in another month that species will be abundant all along 



