The Zoologist — October, 1874. 4173 



leave the premises. Few pets die a natural cleatli, and this unfortunate 

 bird proved no exception to the rule ; for one night it got into the fire, and, 

 before it could extricate itself, sustained such severe injury that it died very 

 shortly afterwards. Another owl of the same species, after being kept for 

 several months, died after eating a small piece of salt fish. One kept by 

 myself died at the end of eighteen months, stiU as untameable and — except 

 towards myself — as fierce as upon tlie day of his capture. This bird, having 

 been slightly wounded by Nicolson, was brought to me on the 21st June, 

 1864 ; and although its endeavours to escape ceased in a few hours, it was 

 not in the slightest degree subdued, but was ready with bill and claw for 

 the first hand which happened to approach within reach. My notes upon 

 this individual being much scattered, I here collect them in a more con- 

 venient form, the greater part having already appeared in the pages of the 

 ' Zoologist.'— P. 44. 



The constant clashing of hypothesis and fact, of what Nature 

 ought to do and what she does, will never receive a more apt 

 illustration than in the natural history of the redwing. I shall 

 not think of encumbering this notice by repeating the record that 

 has already appeared in these pages of the redwing nesting at 

 Maentwrog, in North Wales ; but the editor of the new edition of 

 Yarrell (vol. i, p. 269) has a comment on the record, which a sense 

 of justice compels me to quote, and to accompany with Mr. Saxby's 

 reply. The passage in Yarrell is this : — " Cases, though to be 

 regarded with doubt, have also been recorded of its breeding in 

 this island [Great Britain] ; of these perhaps the best authenticated 

 is that mentioned by Dr. Saxby, who says (Zool. p. 7427) that in 

 May, 1855, at Maentwrog, in North Wales, he found a redwing's 

 nest with four eggs, upon which he repeatedly saw the bird." No 

 fact throughout Yarrell's invaluable volumes is more clearly stated 

 than this, and I cannot see on what plea it can be called in question. 

 Here is the Rev. S. H. Saxby's comment: — 



" [I shall perhaps be exercising a wise discretion in here departing for 

 once from the strictness with which these pages are confined to observations 

 made in Shetland, and venturing a remark on the assertion in the new 

 edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds,' that the recorded cases of the redwing's 

 breeding in Great Britain are to be regarded with doubt. There cannot be 

 the shadow of a question as to the absolute soundness of the case there 

 merely alluded to as perhaps the best authenticated, namely, the detection of 

 the nest by Dr. Saxby in May, 1855, in North Wales. It was under his daily 

 observation from May 12th to June 5th, when at last it was cut out of the 

 bay-tree in which it was built, the birds having forsaken it, all his vigilance 

 SECOND SERIES — VOL. IX. 3 B 



