The Zoologist — ^January, 1874. 3831 



numerous than the fieldfares, and the damage done of course far greater ; 

 it was also much more difficult to get shots at them than at the fieldfares. 

 Whether the excellence of the roast made up for the damage done is 

 doubtful ; both the blackbirds, however, and fieldfares were remarkably fat, 

 and by no means contemptible as a second course. I can account to myself 

 for the fieldfares not visiting me before, for they may not have found out 

 the apples before, the orchards being rather removed from the arable lauds 

 where fieldfares usually haunt ; but I cannot so account for the blackbirds 

 and thrushes attacking me more this year than in 1870, when, as far as my 

 recollection goes, they were at least as numerous as now. Quite inde- 

 pendently of numbers, I am convinced that many birds must be under the 

 influence of some cause or other by which they become, or cease to be, 

 pests, in what appears to us an arbitrary and unaccountable manner. 

 Thirty years ago, when I am sure the blackbirds and thrushes were quite 

 as plentiful here as they are at present, there was not a net ever used to 

 protect fruit of any sort, and all sorts of fruit were proverbial in their 

 abundance ; goosebei'ries uunetted hung on the trees until dead ripe, whereas 

 during the last ten years not a single dish of strawberries, currants or 

 gooseberries would have ripened but for close netting. So again, with 

 respect to the damage done by bullfinches, I have for several years been 

 compelled to defend myself by shooting them ; nothing else practicable is 

 effectual, but thirty years ago no one here ever dreamt of shooting a bull- 

 finch, and yet scarcely a fruit-bud (except of greengages and some other 

 kinds of plum) suffered ; certainly the gooseberry bushes were never 

 completely stripped from top to stem as they are now. During the last 

 winter these birds, for the first time on record here, attacked the apricots, 

 peaches and nectarines on walls, completely stripping many of them of fruit- 

 buds. Whence arose this new form of their destructive propensity ? and 

 will it continue in future seasons ? If we may credit Mr. F. O. Morris, the 

 bullfinches of Yorkshire are quite unobjectionable garden visitors in the 

 early spring mornings ; and also (if I remember rightly) Mr. M. finds no 

 need of nets even to protect his strawberry beds. Will the Yorkshire bii'ds 

 degenerate in course of years, or will birds of Dorsetshire amend their 

 ways? — 0. P. Cambridge; Bloxnorth Bectory, December 8, 1873. 



Ring Ouzel, &c., at Exmoutli.— On Sunday, the 26th of October, as I 

 was taking a walk with my sou on the cliffs near Exmouth, we came across 

 a few late stragglers. We came upon the place where some bird had been 

 killed by a hawk; we could not at once identify the feathers of the 

 slaughtered bird, but, after a little, we came to the conclusion that they 

 were those of a young ring ouzel. Soon afterwards we saw two ring ouzels, 

 both birds of the year : they were very tame, and allowed us to get quite 

 close to them : we watched them for some time as they were feeding 

 eagerly on sloe-berries. We also saw a flock of about twenty tree pipits 



