Tue ZooLocist—May, 1876. 4907 
Shorteared Owl.—During the winter months these birds resort 
in large numbers to the warrens and sandhills of Walney Island, 
where I have seen as many as six together, beating the ground for 
mice, between three and four o’clock in the afternoon. Whether they 
thus visit us in the ordinary course of their migrations, or whether 
they are driven from the high land by the frost and snow, I cannot 
say; the fact, however, remains that during the four or five winter 
months as many as nine specimens have been brought to the bird- 
stuffer in a single day, whilst it would be utterly impossible to 
procure one from the same locality during the spring or summer. 
The way in which these and others of our feathered visitors are 
ruthlessly destroyed immediately they appear on our inhospitable 
shores is a matter for real regret; and yet when a flight of 
birds, and especially such birds as owls, alight actually within the 
boundaries of a borough containing 40,000 inhabitants, and in a 
locality where one may meet a dozen men with guns on any 
Saturday afternoon, what else can be expected? 
Wheatear.—First seen on March 30th, and again on April 10th 
at an elevation of nearly two thousand feet. 
Yellow Wagtail.—First seen on April 10th. 
Rook.—It is worthy of record that the large colony of rooks 
which inhabit the trees surrounding the well-known ruins of Furness 
Abbey, during the breeding season, invariably retire elsewhere— 
probably to Conishead Priory, a distance of about nine miles—to 
spend the winter. I have noticed the same thing before in the 
case of small rookeries, but never in an establishment of such large 
dimensions as that at Furness Abbey. 
Magpie.—The number of these birds to be found in this neigh- 
bourhood strikes me as being somewhat unusual. I have frequently 
counted as many as thirty in a flock during the months of December 
and January. 
Kingfisher.—A few years ago one of these birds killed itself by 
flying against the lighthouse on the south end of Walney Island, 
which is remarkable from the fact that I have never seen one in 
this neighbourhood. I am informed by Geldart, the keeper of the 
lighthouse, on whose evidence I place full reliance, that thirty years 
ago it was not an unusual thing for as many as a hundred birds of 
various kinds to kill themselves against the glass of the light in a 
single night, whereas during the last six months a stock dove 
and a woodcock are the only birds which have thus involuntarily 
