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THE ZooLocist—JANUARY, 1876. 4761 
Monday, November Ist, while in the act of taking a coot. It is the only 
specimen I have ever known to occur in this neighbourhood. — R. P 
Nicholls ; Kingsbridge. 
Montagu’s Harrier near York.—By the inclosed report of a meeting of 
the York Field Naturalists’ Society, you will see that a specimen of 
Montagu’s harrier, shot lately near York, was exhibited. There is no 
mistake.—J. S. Wesley; Wetherby. (‘ Field,’ October 23.) 
Great Gray Shrike at Fulham.—I have recently received a fine male 
specimen of the great gray shrike (Lanius Hacubitor), which was shot at 
Fulham.—Thomas Eedle. 
Chiffehaff in December.—I saw a chiffchaff this morning in a garden 
here busily searching for insects under the leaves of Euonymus japonica. 
I was at the time standing at a window, the bird not being more than a 
yard distant from me.—J. Jenner Weir ; Lewes, Sussea, December 6, 1875. 
The Coal Titmouse of the Continent,—Will the discriminating readers 
of the ‘ Zoologist,’ more particularly those who are resident in the East, 
oblige me by looking out for the coal titmouse of the Continent (Parus ater 
of Linneus). Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser have made a species of our 
insular form under the name of P. britannicus.. The chief distinctions are 
that in P. ater the back is ‘‘a clear slaty-blue,” while in P. britannicus it 
is “grayish, with a strong wash of yellowish olive.” Only two or three 
specimens have been recognised as British at present, but no doubt when 
the distinctions are known others will turn up. Prof. Newton throws some 
doubt on its value as a good species (‘ British Birds,’ i. 492), but it is—to 
say the least of it—as deserving of specific rank as the whitebeaded 
longtailed titmouse (Acredula caudata (Linn.) and the northern marsh tit 
(P. borealis, De Selys-Longchamps, Acad. R. de Bruxelles, vol. x., No. vii., 
p. 5), which haye no lack of supporters at home and abroad.—J. H. Gurney, 
jun. 
The Blackeap’s Head in Winter.—Mr. Wharton asks any of your readers 
who have wintered in the same countries as the blackeap to let him know 
their experieuce as to the retention or not of the black head. I was in 
Algeria in February, 1870, and I found this charming warbler very abundant. 
1 remember counting as many as thirteen one day on one tree, but I never 
found any males with red heads, though I was aware of Canon Tristram’s 
having met with them in Palestine, and took particular pains in dissecting 
all T shot. I cannot agree with the Editor of “ Yarrell,” when he says the 
blackeap is a bird of passage in Algeria, for I have not the least doubt that 
it is in the Atlas all the winter. ‘The date when I saw thirteen on one tree 
was long before the migratory tide had set in, and I feel no doubt that those 
birds had been there all through December and Janaary. I shot a specimen 
at El Ateuf, a Mzab town, some four hundred miles into the Sabara.— 
J. A. Gurney, jun. 
