The Zoologist — December, 1873. 3783 



Ornithological Notes from Devonshire, Cornwall, Sfc. 

 By John Gatcombe, Esq, 



(Continued from S. S. 3730). 



September, 1873. 



4th. Visited Lifton, Devon, in the neighbourhood of which 

 I found sparrowhawlis and kestrels plentiful ; indeed the latter 

 have been very numerous in both Devon and Cornwall during the 

 present autumn ; but I am sorry to add that I have seen many of 

 these birds lately in the birdstufFers' shops, which had been caught 

 in "gins;" likewise a fine buzzard and two barn owls, which had 

 shared the same fate. It is a great pity that gamekeepers and 

 farmers will persist in destroying birds that do so much good, and 

 the stomachs of which I generally find crammed with the remains 

 of mice and beetles. A few days since I found the stomach of a 

 kestrel to contain, in addition to beetles, the full-grown larva of the 

 moth Hadena oleracea. At Lifton I also found swallows very 

 plentiful, and observed martins still feeding their young in the 

 nests. 



5th. Young herring and lesser blackbacked gulls very numerous 

 in Plymouth Sound. 



8th. Went into Cornwall, and remarked curlews, godwits and 

 sandpipers, of many kinds, on the mud-flals of the St. Germans 

 river; also some blackheaded gulls not long returned from their 

 breeding-stations. In the fields there were numbers of titlarks in 

 small flocks or families. 



11th. Wind very strong. Numbers of martins were congregating 

 and flying round our house early in the morning ; some of them 

 constantly fed their young on the wing. Examined a fine Cornish 

 chough which had been killed in Cornwall, and the stomach of 

 which contained Coleoptera and grain. 



14th. A very large flock of swallows flying about and con- 

 stantly settling on the telegraph-wires; many of these, too, fed 

 their young on the wing. I was told by a friend who has lately 

 visited Yorkshire that he had observed many flocks of wild geese 

 (bean geese, I suppose), in August, passing over the wolds, and 

 that he did not remember ever having seen them so early before. 



15th. Blowing and raining very hard ; nevertheless a large com- 

 pany of swallows appeared flying round, very high, apparently 



