4898 THe ZooLocist—May, 1876. 
from the 1st of January to the middle of March, has been extremely 
mild and open, with much rain—February being an exceptionally 
wet month, rain falling on twenty-four days, and the barometer 
never up to thirty inches after the 3rd. It has also been since 
Christmas the very worst wild-fowl season known for many years 
on the east coast—neither duck nor wader to be found along the 
shore. We might walk for miles without seeing anything, except the 
ubiquitous hoodie or a troop of wandering gulls; inland also, with 
the exception of a few pairs of mallard on the drains and blow- 
wells, neither plover nor snipe, and I have not come across a single 
teal during the last three months, or had a pull at a golden plover. 
Even in an ordinary season we can generally manage to obtain, 
with a fair amount of exercise, a supply of wild-fow] for the house 
up to the end of February. This year I have scarcely had a gun 
in my hand since Christmas. You might have carried one for days 
without getting a shot. There has been also no wild-fowl in the 
game-shops, and this is always a certain criterion that there has 
been nothing to shoot. 
Thrush.—After the short burst of sharp weather in the middle of 
Jauuary considerable flights of thrushes, with a few redwings, 
visited the fields of young clover in the marshes. They continued 
in these localities for about ten days, and then left the district. 
[ never succeeded in ascertaining what object they had in fre- 
quenting so persistently situations far removed from their usual 
haunts. It was probably due to some favourite food. That the 
Merulide have not suffered from a scarcity of food is apparent by 
our hollies and other berry-bearing shrubs being still (April 8rd) 
resplendent with glittering carcanets of coral; even the abundance 
of haws on the hedges are in many places scarcely touched. 
Rock Dove.—January 17. 1 examined one shot recently on the 
coast. The nearest nesting station of the rock dove is Flam- 
borough Head. 
Chaffinch.—The migratory flocks visiting us in the autumn are 
composed almost entirely of females and the young of the year. 
It is rarely indeed in these coast marshes that we see any number 
of old males. I have this season, however, come across some 
flocks of old males a few miles from this on the high wolds—most 
notably under beech trees; and on another occasion, when riding 
through one of Lord Yarborough’s woods, a large flock of bril- 
liantly coloured males flew up from a plot where buckwheat 
ee 
