1178 The Zoologist— April, 1868. 



Herts. It generally swarms, but this season I have scarcely seen one. The fieldfare 

 has also been unusually scarce. — //. Harpur Creive. 



Scarcity of the Redioing. — In the last number of the 'Zoologist' Mr. G. F. 

 Mathew remarks on the scarcity of the redwing in Devon this season. I beg to 

 inform him that redwiDgs have been tolerably abundant at Cobbam (Kent). Field- 

 fares, however, have been very scarce, and I never saw more than two or three at a 

 time. Last year fieldfares were very abundant, large numbers appearing on the 3rd 

 of January, the day on which so many wood larks occurred at Cobbam and in Sussex. 

 — Clifton; Eton College, March 3, 1868. 



Wildness of the Hawfinch. — Mr. Doubleday remarks on the extreme wildness of 

 the hawfinch in Ejping Forest. As far as I have observed, it is not always very 

 wild. Last winter I observed one hopping about on the grass, within ten paces of 

 the house (Cobham). When seen so near, the white bill of the winter plumage had 

 a very odd appearance, giving one the idea of a bird with a piece of bread 

 in its mouth. I imagiue that some hawfinches leave us in the winter and return to 

 breed. — Id. 



Bittern at Stcyning, Sussex. — A fine adult male bittern was shot by Mr. William 

 Stanford on his farm last January: it was shot in the back, and on his going to pick 

 it up it set up its neck-feathers and came at him as well as it could : however, a blow 

 from a hedge-stake soon settled its pugnacity. It has been well set up by Mr. Potter, 

 of the neighbouring village of Brambtr. — //. J. While; Stcyning, Sussex, March 13, 

 1868. 



Blacklailed Godwil in Somersetshire. — On Saturday, the 15th of February, 

 I rescued a very fair specimen of the blacktailed godwit from the cook of a gentleman 

 at Taunton, who had bought it of one of the poulterers with some peewits, and was 

 going to have them all cooked for his dinner. It is an adult bird, in winter plumage. 

 On inquiry at the poulterer's, he said that it had been shot in the marsh, and that the 

 man who shot it told him there was another bird of the same kind in company with it, 

 but that it was too wild for him to get a shot at it. — Cecil Smith; Lydeard House, 

 Taunton, February 20, 1868. 



Plumage of the OystercaUher.— la the ' Zoologist' for 1867 (S. S. 607), Mr. Clark- 

 Kennedy describes a specimen of an oyslercatcher, which, he shot along with another 

 at Hunstauton, in Norfolk. He says that, of the two specimens, " the smaller bird 

 had its neck, to the breast, of a pure glossy black, and its bill was more black at the 

 end than that of the other bird." Does not the first part of this description agree very 

 closely with that given by Sir W. Jardine, in his ' Illustrations of Ornithology,' as 

 being characteristic of the closely-allied species in America, viz. Haimolopus arcticus? 

 I think, however, the bill is yellow both in the American and British birds, not black. 

 It might be worth Mr. Clark-Kennedy's while to compare his specimen with H. arc- 

 ticus and H. palliatua, both figured by Sir W. Jardine. — John A. Harvie Brown ; 

 130, George Street, Edinburgh, March 19, 1868. 



Storm Petrel in Buckinghamshire. — During a gale of wind on the night of the 

 21st of January, at about half-past eleven o'clock, a storm petrel was knocked down by 

 a man as it was flying over the London road, near High Wycombe. It appeared very 

 exhausted, and was taken by its captor to my friend Mr. James Britten, Secretary to 

 the Natural History Society, High Wycombe, who put it into a basket, in which he had 

 placed some flannel, and consigned it to a warm room. The next day it seemed rather 



