258 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
their clear, sonorous notes may be heard almost in every grove. Isawa 
Pied Wagtail for the first time on March 10th; a few hen Chaffinches on 
the 18th ; and a friend told me he observed a female Wheatear on April 1st. 
I believe the females generally make their appearance a few days before the 
males.—E. P. P. Burrerrreip (Wilsden). 
[Our correspondent’s observation with regard to the Willow Wren con- 
firms a remark which we have before had occasion to make, namely, that 
the song of a summer bird, when heard for the first time, does not always 
indicate that the author of it has only just arrived; on the contrary, for 
the reason above stated and from other causes, the bird may have been 
here many days before announcing its presence by a song.—Ep. | 
Brackcar’s Nurst SUSPENDED IN A Fir Tree.—I came across a very 
unusual site for a Blackcap’s nest last summer, well illustrating the old 
proverb that ‘‘ Necessity is the mother of invention.” This bird, as every 
one knows, usually builds amongst brambles, grown through with nettles, 
&c., but in this instance a marked deviation from the usual mode had 
been resorted to. Ina fir plantation, consisting chiefly of spruce without 
any underwood (indeed nothing will grow beneath spruce), a Blackcap had ~ 
suspended its nest in the hollow formed by the downward growth of the spring 
shoots of a spruce branch stretching out from the tree and a few feet from 
the ground, exactly in the manner of the Goldcrest.—F’. Boyrs (Beverley). 
Buack-rHRoATED Diver on Fresh Wartrer.—A female Black-throated 
Diver was shot during the third week of April on a fresh-water pond at 
Trengwainton, which as the crow flies is about a mile from the sea. The 
Divers are oceanic in their habits; and at this season of the year, when 
mackerel and other fish are abundant, it is curious that the bird in question 
should have strayed inland to the pond referred to. We never see the Black- 
throated Diver in its full speckled plumage with black throat, but we get the 
other two species occasionally in full ornate plumage. The Black-throated 
Diver is much the rarest of the three-—Epwarp Hrarte Ropp (Penzance). 
[Our correspondent’s remarks are no doubt accurate enough as regards 
Cornwall, but will not apply to Scotland, where both the Black-throated and 
Red-throated Divers are eminently fresh-water species. There is, perhaps, 
scarcely a loch of any size in the north and west of Scotland that is not 
tenanted, for a considerable portion of the year, by one or more pairs of 
Divers.—Eb. | 
RovuGH-LEGGED BuzzarD AND PereGrineE Fatcons at Harwich.— 
A beautiful dark-coloured specimen of the Rough-legged Buzzard was shot 
here in November last; and in December two female Peregrine Falcons 
were shot on the River Stour—one in the act of stooping at some Sea 
Gulls ; the other, after it had pounced on a Wood Pigeon flying across the 
river, which it carried to the shore and there killed by tearing out the 
windpipe and breaking the neck at the back of the head; it was extremely 
