226 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
be preserved. The birdstuffer informs me that he has had many curious 
varieties of the mole sent to him, but that this is by far the handsomest 
he has seen.—C. Marrnew Prior (Bedford). 
[Mr. Bell, in the second edition of his ‘ British Quadrupeds’ (p. 139), 
notices several remarkable varieties of the mole, and amongst others the 
variety here described. He says, “It is found of a deep black colour, of 
a mouse-colour, dark olive-brown, pied, yellowish white, and wholly or 
partially orange.” —Ep.] 
Tue Meri in Sours Wrrrs.—During the past winter I have 
had four notices of the occurrence of the Merlin in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Salisbury, which either proves that this bird is com- 
moner in the district during the winter months than I at all realized, 
or else that there has been an unusual immigration of the species during 
this particular season. In November a fine male bird was shot by 
Mr. Powell, of Hurdcott House, some six miles from Salisbury; and in 
the same month another specimen was brought to the stuffer at War- 
minster, also a male bird. On the 2nd of January, 1877, I had a nice hen 
bird sent to me, also from Hurdcott, which had been shot by Mr. J. A. 
Tyndale Powell, and is now in the hands of Hart for preservation. The 
same gentleman, while shooting with a friend on January 13th, dis- 
covered a fourth specimen, a hen, much brighter in colour than the one he 
had previously sent me. It had been shot by the keeper about a fortnight 
previously, in the adjoining wood, and was hung up by the head on the 
keeper’s gallows. I am glad to find from this that the Merlin is not so 
uncommon in the South as I at first thought. I have only noticed it 
myself once since I have been living in these parts, now some sixteen years, 
when I saw a hen bird chasing a Sky Lark, in pursuit of which it made 
fourteen distinct stoops, the end of the chase being hidden from me by the 
trees. Some little time back I wrote to Hart, of Christchurch, to enquire 
about the prevalence of the Merlin in the Christchurch neighbourhood, and 
he wrote me back word “Merlin and Hobby killed frequently,” and on 
making a second enquiry of him he wrote ‘‘I find the Merlin is nearly as 
often killed as the Hobby; possibly the Hobby is killed oftener, but does 
not find its way to me,” and during October, when at Christchurch myself, 
he showed me several specimens, one, a beautiful male bird, which he had 
himself shot while attacking his poultry, and which had not a single inter- 
mediate bar on its tail, thus resembling that of an adult male Kestrel, 
only blue in shade. No doubt it occasionally breeds in the New Forest.— 
Arrtaur P. Morrss (Britford Vicarage, Salisbury). 
[Mr. Wise, in his ‘ History of the New Forest’ (p. 267), notices the fact 
of the Merlin occasionally breeding in the New Forest. He says in 
1859 and 1861 Mr. Farren received two nests with three eggs, taken in old 
pollard hollies growing in the open heath, which in every way corresponded 
