‘THe ZooLocist—Aucust, 1876. 5043 
Euspiza melanocephala. Its having been employed to designate Emberiza 
scheeniclus is an unfortunate circumstauce, but in future the latter species 
must go by the name of the “reed bunting."—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
House Sparrows and Drought.—It is well known that during the time 
of rearing their young, house sparrows are very active in the pursuit of 
caterpillars, such a pabulum, no doubt, agreeing best with the juvenile 
beaks and weak digestive organs of the callow brood; and amongst the chief 
attractions to the old birds at such a time are the larve of Depressarie and 
other 'Tinex which live in moss upon the tiles of the houses ; and frequently 
the ground beneath is strewn with the moss which has been detached during 
the search. During the continued drought which we experienced in this 
neighbourhood through the latter half of April and nearly the whole of 
May the sparrows became almost a nuisance from the litter they made with 
the moss, &c., and one old thatched cottage was nearly unroofed by flocks 
of them settling upon and tearing the thatch to pieces. . I attributed this 
somewhat unusual performance to the drought, or possibly to the cold nights 
and backward spring, and consequent lack of caterpillars in other quarters.— 
G. B. Corbin. 
Crossbill on Fair Island——Perhaps I may, without impropriety, copy 
for you the following extract from a letter to the late Mr. J. H. Dunn, and 
given to me by him, recording, though unfortunately without any date, the 
eapture alive of a crossbill on the little-known island called Fair Island, 
which lies midway between the groups of Shetland and Orkney :—*I got 
the enclosed [crossbill] at Fair Island on our late trip—I forgot it on board 
the steamer until to-day—it was alive when I got it; please skin it.” The 
above may be interesting to some, if you can find a corner for it, and may 
be strictly relied on. Some time ago, I cannot now turn to the passage, a 
erossbill with dull white tips to the wing-coverts, shot in Norfolk, was 
named in the ‘ Zoologist.’ There was no solid reason for supposing either 
that it was a variety of the whitewinged crossbill or a hybrid between that 
species and the common one, but when I saw it at the house of Mr. Gunn in 
October, 1871, it struck me that it quite tallied with the description of 
those singular varieties of Mr. H. Doubleday’s mentioned in Yarrell 
(‘British Birds,’ ii., 25, article ‘Common Crossbill”), and I pointed out 
the coincidence to some of my friends, but I am not aware that it was 
ever alluded to.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
Curious Nesting-places of the Starling.—The partiality of starlings for 
building their nests in or very near the dwellings of man is well known; 
but it seems to me that many of them delight in noise and bustle at such a 
time, if I may judge from the number of nests annually constructed in the 
roof of a large school in this neighbourhood. During a half-hour’s delay at 
the railway station at Westbury, Wilts, a few seasons ago, I was much 
interested in watching the movements of some starlings who had built their 
