4862 Tue ZooLocist—APRIL, 1876. 
recording in this locality during the autumn and up to the close of 
the year. 
DECEMBER, 1875. 
Snow Bunting.—1st. Sharp east wind. Though there were 
no signs of winter at Beverley, we could see all the wolds were 
whitened over with snow, and on my driving there I found there 
had been a very sharp frost and a slight sprinkling of snow. I saw 
a few snow buntings. 
Shieldrake.~—8rd. An adult male shieldrake was shot at Etton, 
a village about four miles west of Beverley, but whether an escaped 
bird or not I could not tell: it bore no marks of having been in 
confinement. 
Stock Dove.—4th. Wind E.N.E. Began to snow fast early in 
the morning and covered the ground over. Saw a quantity of 
stock doves (Columba enas). 
Peewit and Golden Plover.—5th. More snow; ground covered 
to the depth of about two inches; hard frost. Peewits and golden 
plovers passing over all day long, going directly southward. These 
birds leave us after the first heavy fall of snow and hard frost,—that 
means, as soon as they are no longer able to get food,—and very 
seldom return in any numbers, be the weather ever so mild, until 
the spring. Heard that a flock of swans, numbering twenty birds, 
had been seen flying along the river, but could not ascertain the 
date. 
Larks.—6th. Wind still easterly and bitterly cold. Larks going 
north—a most unusual circumstance and unprecedented in my 
recollection: they were all flying the same way, flock after flock, 
though the flocks were not very large. I cannot account for it, 
unless they were birds that had been south, and found so much 
more snow there than here, and were returning. 
Merlin.—7th. Slight thaw. An adult female merlin shot at 
Beverley to-day, also an adult male on the 8th, and a young male 
on the 14th: they have been quite common this winter. 
Green Sandpiper.—8th. Thaw. Green sandpiper, male, shot 
at Beverley. I have several times previously known this bird to 
be shot in the winter. 
Blacktailed Godwit and Goosander.—9th. A general thaw; 
nearly all the snow gone. An old female blacktailed godwit shot 
by IE. Wheldrake on the foreshore of the Humber near Spurn. 
