NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 389 
uninterrupted wild land, covered with heather, furze, and bracken. 
Besides this wild furze land, there are several thick furze brakes 
inland,-in different parts of the island. This is the stronghold 
of the Linnet (which is far commoner in the island than the 
House Sparrow), the Greenfinch, and the Stonechat, while many 
other small birds avail themselves from time to time of the thick 
covert which is here afforded them. One would suppose it to be 
just the place for the Dartford Warbler; but this little bird is 
either so scarce or so difficult to catch sight of, that Mr. Cecil 
Smith has never seen it himself, and is only able to record a 
single instance of its occurrence there. The Goldcrest occasionally 
comes over in large flocks, apparently from Normandy. Several 
flocks, numbering many hundreds in each, have been observed to 
settle on different parts of the common before dispersing over the 
island. The rarer Firecrest is now and then met with, although 
not in flocks. 
The Crossbill is said to be an occasional visitant to all the 
islands, and sometimes in considerable numbers; but, as in 
England, it is very irregular in the date of its appearance Mr. 
Smith writes (p. 86) :— 
“My first acquaintance with the Crossbill was in Sark on the 25th 
June, 1866, when I saw a very fine red-plumaged bird in a small fir 
plantation in the grounds of the Lord of Sark. It was very tame, and 
allowed me to approach it very closely. I did not see any others at that 
time amongst the fir trees, though no doubt a few others were there. On 
my return to Guernsey on the following day I was requested by a bird- 
catcher to name some birds that were doing considerable damage in the 
gardens about the town. Thinking, from having seen one in Sark, and 
from his description, that the birds might be Crossbills, I asked him to get 
me one or two, which he said he could easily do, as the people were destroying 
them on account of the damage they did. In a day or two he brought me 
one live and two dead Crossbills, and told me that as many as forty had 
been shot in one person’s garden. ‘The two dead ones he brought me were 
one in red and the other in green plumage, and the live one was in green 
plumage. This one I brought home and kept in my aviary till March, 1868, 
when it was killed by a hawk striking it through the wires. It was, however, 
still in the same green plumage when it was killed as it was when I brought 
it home, though it had moulted twice.” 
The absence of Rooks from the Channel Islands is noticeable. 
‘*T have never seen the Rook in the islands myself,” says Mr. 
