The Zoologist— April, 1868. 1167 



been a great destruction of insect life. In easterly winds no food to 

 be had but about the ponds. 



May 31. Swifts, swallows and martins all hawking together over a 

 large, long wheat field on the sunny side of the cemetery hill, the head 

 of the valley from Croydon to Shooter's Hill : possibly the southerly 

 winds sweep up the smaller flies hither, for the Elthara swifts have 

 been hawking there all the summer. 



June 1. Saw a butcher bird at the west foot of Shooter's Hill near 

 the cemetery. A quiet, steady bird, he remained motionless a long 

 time; he had but just moulted, and looked bright, clean and smart. 

 Having got a good front view of him I never saw a more delicate 

 beautifully pencilled breast, — a hawk in miniature. From the hedge 

 his flight was straight and heavy. Winding my way up the hill, 

 through the rough tangled bushes, I looked with the glass at a pair of 

 willow wrens near their nest, both darker than on thefr arrival, less 

 yellow and more olive. Saw a richly coloured male whinchat in his 

 old quarters towards the top of the furzes and brakes. Seeing a lark 

 basking in the sun, and dusting himself in the farm road by Wellhall, 

 I turned the glass on him and saw for the first time the crested lark. 

 The feathers rose perpendicularly from the base of the bill and formed 

 an arch over the top of the head ; it gave the bird the appearance of 

 having a top-heavy, cumbersome cock's comb : a cab coming by off it 

 flew, something like a wood lark, and dissimilar to our sky lark. I 

 tried often, but could not meet with it again. 



June 2. A pair of swifts located about the many empty new houses 

 in Vanbro' fields, and hawking on the east side of the heath. 



June 11. In the fields on the N.VV. of Eltham I saw a splendid 

 yellow wagtail perched on an isolated small bush : it was so tame and 

 fearless that I got within six yards of it, and examined it carefully for 

 twenty minutes. It was long, level and slender, like the tree pipit; a 

 while line above the eye, a strong yellow on the breast, with a long 

 brown tail, the outer feathers white : as it flew off to the ploughing it 

 was joined by its mate from a tree. A few weeks later, while following 

 the plough too closely, it was cut down by the whip of a cruel plough- 

 boy, and went to the cat. 



June 13. Watched six house martins digging mud from the gravel- 

 pit on the heath. They were busy building in Vanbro' fields, coming 

 and returning incessantly. Never saw so many whinchats, old and 

 young, as during the haymaking the last fortnight in June. The cold 

 wet winds of the early spring had driven them from, their accustomed 



