Tue ZooLtocist— Marcu, 1876. 4813 
Notes from North Devon and West Somerset. 
By the Rey. Murray A. MATHEW, M.A. 
DECEMBER, 1875. 
10th. Bishop’s Lydeard. Saw a little flock of tree sparrows 
to-day, a species I have not yet detected breeding in this neigh- 
bourhood. Mr. Cecil Smith describes it as extremely local in 
Somérsetshire, and speaks of a colony established at Wivelis- 
combe. A few summers since I noticed this sparrow at Burnham 
in this county, and was told by Dr. Morris, a brother of the Rev. 
F. O. Morris, that it nested in some pollard willows about which I 
had seen several of the birds. _. 
11th. A freshly killed landrail was hanging up to-day in a poul- 
terer’s shop in Taunton; and in the market I counted upwards of 
a score of woodcocks which had probably fallen to the guns of 
shooters of small birds. In hard weather woodcocks are frozen 
out of the large woods, and resort to orchards, withy beds and 
sheltered hedgerows, where they may often be seen upon the 
ground. Indeed, one day this winter, when there was no frost, I 
saw two woodcocks upon the ground in a wood we were shooting, 
and one of our party actually shot one while it was squatting under 
a bush. No doubt the instinct of the birds leads them to repose 
confidence in the close resemblance between the shades of their 
plumage and the colour of the ground when strewn with withered 
leaves, and they often lie close and escape being flushed, although 
a beater or a dog may have passed within a few feet of the spot. 
I recollect one day a keeper and IJ had both emptied our guns at 
rabbits when we became simultaneously aware of a woodcock sitting 
almost under us upon a moss-covered stone. Directly the bird 
caught our eyes it took wing and made off; but would probably 
have remained motionless had we failed to detect it. 
I heard to-day of a fine specimen of the black-throated diver, 
almost in complete plumage, having being sent to the Taunton 
-birdstuffer. It had been obtained on a pond on the estate of the 
Countess of Egremont, near Williton, and Mr. Cecil Smith tells 
me it is the first instance of this diver, so far as he knows, having 
occurred in the county. The birdstuffer at the same time had 
received a great northern diver in an advanced state of plumage 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. XI. M 
