2406 The Zoologist — December, 1870. 



ment seems to have set in this week, as hosts of fieldfares, redwings, huks, &c., have 

 arrived at Scilly, and the first great flight of woodcocks in this neighbourhood 

 took place on the night of Thursday, the 3rd instant. — Edward Hearle Rodd ; 

 November 5, 1870. 



PS. — A ship put in at Scilly a few days since, and reported thai at a distance of 

 three hundred miles west of these islands they fell in with a large flock of starlings, 

 which took the opportunity of alighting on the ship, apparently in a state of partial 

 exhaustion. A large number were killed for the crew's use, and a considerable number 

 stuck to the ship and remained on board till the arrival at Scilly. This flock of 

 starlings pretty well coincided with a large flight at Scilly during this month. The 

 great autumnal migratorial movement southward has been observed to be much later 

 this year than usual. These great early flights may I think be regarded as the great 

 seasonal migration, the general tendency of the mass of birds being to southern 

 climes, the West of England, Ireland and the Scilly Isles being mere resting places 

 previous to their final departure. The succeeding flights in winter and severe cold 

 weather, when we receive large accessions of difi'erent species in flights, depend upon 

 a diff"erenl impulse mainly, viz. the seeking food and warmth from an actual sense of 

 deprivation of the means of sustenance. This is particularly remarkable in the field- 

 fare and redwing. These flights retire again, when the weather breaks up, back to 

 their old eastern haunts which they had left, as I have often remarked in snipes, and 

 which, on the appearance of the first smart frost, leave the wild moors on Dartmoor 

 and those about the Checsewring and Dosmary Pool for the more genial bottoms in 

 the Land's End district, including the Scilly Isles. — Id. ; A^ovember 19, 1870. 



Merlins in Ireland. — Large flights have visited this and the neighbouring county 

 of Wicklow this autumn. I more frequently see them than any other hawk on the 

 bogs, moors, hills and sea-shore. — //. lilahe-Knox ; Dalkey, County Dublin. 



Osprey in County Kerry. — A fine example in Mr. Williams' shop, Dame Street, 

 DuMin, shot by a coast-guard's son near Tralee Bay about the end of last September. 

 -Id. 



Nesting of Moiacilla Jlava. — If Mr. Gurney will re-read the paragraph (Zool. 

 S. S. 2343) he will observe that two of the nests of M. flava were taken last year, and as 

 two or three pairs of these birds have been noticed here from year to year, some mature 

 specimens of which have been shot and preserved, he will more easily understand that 

 it is possible for them to have bred three limes here. If acquainted with our British 

 wagtails, he should also know that though M. flava, save for its gray head, might 

 easily be mistaken for M. Rayi by a casual observer, it could by no possibility be 

 mistaken for M. boarula, which is comparatively common here, which has not a gray 

 head, has not a straight hind claw, has three partly white feathers on each side of the 

 tail, instead of only two, us in M. flava and iM. Rayi, and, were it only by the length 

 of its tail, is easily distinguishable from either of them, the difi'erence in length being 

 an inch ; neither do I think that it is the habit of iM. boarula to nest in swampy 

 meadows, as M. flava does. — J. Walson ; Gateshead, November 2, .1870. 



Shore Larks near London. — An entomologist has presented me with a living male 

 shore lark, and I have seen two others in the possession of Air. Pullen, of Club How, 

 and beard of several more. Concerning the one I have in confinement all that I have 

 been able to learn respecting it is that il hovered awhile over a bird-catcher, whose 

 nets were spread in Hackney Marshes, until its peculiar shrill note attracted his 



