2154 The Zoologist — June, 1870. 



Guillemot. — March 17. A guillemot shot on the H umber is in full 

 winter plumage. 



Meadow Pipit. — March 20. Meadow pipits have arrived in their 

 summer quarters. They are the first of our little spring visitors whose 

 return we welcome in our bleak marshes, usually preceding the less 

 hardy pied wagtails by ten days. A very small proportion of those 

 breeding here remain to winter. 



Pied Wagtail. — March 30. The main body arrived about this date, 

 which is later than an average. 



April. 



Starling. — April 2. There were two immense flights of starlings on 

 the coast this morning, and, as our resident birds had paired some 

 weeks since and are now busy nesting, these are probably migrants 

 about leaving the country. I did not again see these two flocks any- 

 where in our marshes, but other flocks of various sizes daily visited 

 the grass pastures along the coast up to the 10th, after which date, 

 excepting our usual stock of paired residents, I did not observe any. 



Variety of the Rook. — April 4. There was a great outcry in our 

 small rookery this afternoon, apparently caused by the presence of a 

 strange rook, having all the primaries of one wing, and all but the first 

 of the other, cream-coloured. Young rooks were calling in the nest 

 on the 7th. 



Redwing. — April 6. Last seen. 



Tree Pipit. — April 6. First arrivals; two seen : unusually early for 

 this bleak district. 



Chifchaf. — April 7th. First heard. 



Stock Dove. — April 8. Observed a pair in an old decayed ash in 

 Riby Park. Are by no means common. 



Wheatear and Wliinchat. — April 9. Seen. 



Chimney Swalloio. — April 10. First. Another on the 13lh, but in 

 no numbers before the 25th. 



Willow Warbler. — A])ril 13. Several heard. 



Hooded Crow. — April 13. Last noted. A flock on the coast near 

 North Cotes. The " hoodies" had paired by the first week in March ; 

 after which they only congregate for some special object — a feast on 

 some tide-cast carcase, or in those places in the fields where the seed- 

 corn is ineflSciently covered; they also assemble in small companies 

 •for migration. On the lith I saw a flock, flying at a considerable 

 height, leaving the coast and passing seaward in a direction which, if 



