4338 THE ZooLoGisT—FEBRUARY, 1875. 
and stones. One gunner shot over thirty before breakfast one morning 
from a hawthorn hedge in Lakenham, where the poor birds had alighted to 
feed on the berries: they seemed to have such slight regard to the noise of 
the shooting that they flocked to the hedge almost as fast as the man could 
load.—T. E. Gunn; Norwich, January 9, 1875. 
Swallows and Martins and Fieldfares—Some swallows and martins were 
very late with us—possibly young birds, unable to leave with the main 
body of migrants. I saw swallows the first few days of December, and on 
Sunday, the 7th, two martins were flying about the church tower, but they 
were very silent—not a note was heard from either as they collected the 
midges. Rather an anomaly, I thought, as a scattered flock of about thirty 
fieldfares passed over, with their wild “cha, cha”: it certainly was a com- 
bination of summer and winter to see martins and fieldfares at the same 
time and place.—G. B. Corbin. 
Capercaillie in Nottinghamshire—On Tuesday, the 29th of December, 
two gentlemen from Nottingham (Mr. Brown and Mr. Butler) were shooting 
a cover near Papplewick Hall, when Mr. Butler fired at and killed a large 
bird which rose out of some fir trees, and on going to pick it up was very 
much astonished to find it a capercaillie, the grandest of British game-birds : 
it was a female and in good condition. A few years ago Mr. Webb, of 
Newstead Abbey, turned out some of these birds, but none had been heard 
of for two or three years, and how the bird had escaped till now is a mystery. 
The keepers had seen it once or twice lately, but thought it was a gray hen— 
a few pairs of which, I am glad to say, may still be found round Mansfield; 
it is not long since I saw half a dozen feeding in a stubble-field within half 
a mile of my house.—J. Whitaker; Rainworth Lodge, near Mansfield. 
Contents of the Crop of a Capercaillie.—At a late meeting of the 
Edinburgh Botanical Society, a paper on this subject was read by Mr. 
Malcolm Dunn, of Dalkeith Palace Gardens. In his communication, 
Mr. Dunn explained that he had had occasion at various times to examine 
the crops of these splendid birds, which became extinct in Scotland some fifty 
years ago, but were re-introduced about twenty years later by Sir William 
Steuart, of Murthly. The following were the contents of the crop of a large 
capercailzie, weighing eleven pounds and three quarters, which he had 
examined in September, 1873:—Two hundred and three points of the 
shoots of Scotch fir, some of which were fully three inches long and two 
inches wide ; eleven pieces of young wood, one and a half to two and a half 
inches in length and about one inch in circumference at the thickest part, 
each with some leaves attached; and fifty-two buds—making in all the 
enormous number of two hundred and sixty-six shoots and buds of Scotch - 
fir, besides a large handful of single leaves from the same tree, for a single 
meal of an average-sized bird. The contents of the crop of a smaller bird, 
weighing nine pounds and a half, examined in April of last year, consisted 
a 
