The Zoologist — February, 18<38. 1097 



Bohemian Waxwing at Leiston, Suffolk.— J bavejust received a beautiful male 

 specimen of the Bohemian waxwing, which was shot in the vicinity of a farm-house 

 about a mile distant: it answers to the description given in Yarrell's ' British Birds,' 

 with a few slight exceptions; the wax-like appendages, eight in number, are confined 

 to the teriials, which are all tipped with them, the centre ones having the longest; the 

 secondary and also primary quill-feathers having the yellow patch with a white margin 

 on ihe outer web, which diminishes in size towards the first primary, which is without 

 it. — Edward Neave ; Leiston, Suffolk, January 16, 1868. 



Haiuftnch.es at Weston-super-Mare.— We have now a flock of hawfinches in our 

 neighbourhood. Eight were brought to the local birdstuffer in one day. The hawfinch 

 is a rars visitor to this pari of the county, and is one of those birds the law of whose 

 migrations is somewhat unaccountable. Flocks will suddenly make their appearance 

 in a part of the country where perhaps only a single specimen had been observed 

 during a long term of years, without there being anything particular about the season 

 to account for their arrival. They will all at once be so numerous that every urchin 

 who goes out to pop at small birds will be sure'„to number several in his bag. After 

 remaining in the district a week or two the survivors will depart, and then nothing 

 more will be seen of the hawfinch for years. The only explanation I have seen given 

 of their appearances does not remove the difficulty involved in their uncertainty. It 

 has been said that the hawfinch is a shy bird, preferring the thickest parts of woods 

 and the most overgrown lanes and hedgerows, where, while the foliage is dense, it is 

 able to escape notice, but that when winter lays bare its lurking places it can remain 

 hidden no longer, and, leaving the woods, appears in flocks wherever it can meet with, 

 its favourite berries. If this were the case we should expect to see the hawfinch every 

 winter. There is no explanation here of its irregular migrations, and of its suddenly 

 appearing in numbers in a neighbourhood where before it had been almost unknown. 

 — M. A. Malhew ; Weston-super-Mare, December 21, 1867. 



Smatl Birds Mobbing a Green Woodpecker.— 'Not long since I was walking in a 

 lane, when a green woodpecker flew off a tree and was at once mobbed and chased by 

 a number of finches. I watched until the woodpecker was out of sight, and all the 

 time the small birds made angry swoops at it, and gave utterance to shrill notes of 

 passion, as they often do when they are seeking to drive away their natural enemy the 

 sparrowhawk. Was this sheer wantonness; or did the fiuches really take the harmless 

 woodpecker to be some dangerous character ?—/</. 



Gathering of Starlings.— A. somewhat curious circumstance which I observed in 

 Sutherland has just recurred to my memory. When birdsnesting with Mr. Jesse last 

 spring on the Badcall Islands, off the west coast of Sutherland, we flushed a lot of 

 starliugs from under some loose boulders and rocks. Being curious to see what had 

 brought them there, we examined the holes and opanings in these rocks, and were 

 surprised to see a large quantity of fresh blood lying on one of the stones. We in 

 vain tried to find out what had occasioned this, but, save the supposition that there 

 had been a general battle among the males, we could come to no decision upon the 

 matter. Perhaps some of your readers might have met with a parallel case, and he 

 able to explain it.— John A. Harvie Broiun ; Dunipace House, Falkirk. 



Late slay of Marlins.— November 28, 1867. On the afternoon of this day, it being 

 bitterly cold, I observed a pair of martins going in aud out of an old martin's nest, 

 apparently to roost there. — John Dutton ; Eastbourne. 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. III. L 



