1220 The Zoologist— May, 18C8. 



the return of the summer, when, revived by (he new warmth, they come out and fly 

 away as formerly. While the lakes are frozen, if somebody will break the ice in those 

 parts where it appears darker than the rest, he will find masses of swallows, — cold, 

 asleep and half dead, — which, by taking out of their retreat and warming-, either with 

 his hands or before a fire, he will see gradually to vivify again and fly. In other 

 countries they retire very often to the caverns under the rocks: as many of ihese exist 

 between the city of Caen and the sea, on the banks of the Orne, there are found some- 

 times during the winter piles of swallows suspended in these vaults, like bundles of 

 grapes. We have witnessed the same thing in Italy, where, as well as in France, it is 

 considered very lucky by the inhabitants when swallows build nests ou their habita- 

 tions. — Morning Advertiser, February 4, 1868. [When will this fable be forgotten?] 



Woodcock killed by Telegraph-wires. — On the 12th of March a woodcock was found 

 under the telegraph-wires about a hundred yards from the Healings Station of the 

 Great Eastern Railway : its head was nearly severed from its body. — E. C. Moor. 



White Woodcock in the North of Yorkshire.— On the 15lb of December, 1867, 

 I received for preservation a beautiful variety of the woodcock, which I was informed 

 had been shot, two or three days previously, somewhere in the North of Yorkshire, by 

 one of a party of gentlemen engaged in grouse shooting. The whole of the upper 

 parts of its plumage are white, suffused with a pile ash-gray tinge, the bars and 

 markings being of a very pale rufous hue, and the broad transverse bars on the crown 

 of its head of a pale brownish gray; the under surface of plumage white, the usual 

 transverse bars being of the faintest water-markings, indeed scarcely distinguishable; 

 iris same colour as the ordinary examples; bill and legs somewhat paler. Ou dis- 

 section it proved to be an adult female. — T. E. Gunn. 



Spring Moulting of the Jack Snipe. — Jack snipes still appear on our Moors, and 

 they were obseived in considerable numbers last week, or rather this week, com- 

 mencing March 30, on the marshes in the Moors around Kilmar. It may not be 

 generally known that this snipe moults all its tail-feathers simultaneously at this 

 season of the year. I received a specimen this day from my nephew, who first called 

 my attention to the fact On examining this specimen the entire new tail was 

 " sprouting," and had grown about three-quarters of an inch, the bases of the feathers 

 being, of course, in a succulent state. I am not aware whether this character is con- 

 fined to this species, but I mention the fact as new to me.— Edward Hearle Rodd; 

 Penzance, April 4, 1868. 



Bittern breeding in Norfolk. — The bittern was formerly a rather common resident 

 in Norfolk, and in the time of Sir Thomas Browne bred in some numbers in our Feus 

 and Broads, but of later years the species has become more scarce, its visits being 

 almost exclusively coufiued to the winter season. Very few are the instances of its 

 occurrence in the summer; in fact, so rare has the nesting of the bittern become of 

 recent years that standard authors, such as Yarrell and others, cannot give more than 

 three well-authenticated instances of its breeding in Great Britain, and in two of these 

 cases the young had beeu hatched ; in the third instance a single egg was obtained at 

 Ranworih, in Norfolk, and it is this latter specimen that the Rev. F. 0. Morris, in his 

 work on the 'Eggs of British Birds,' has figured in his plate (vol. ii. p. 147). Seeing, 

 then, that the nesting of the bittern is of such rare 'occurrence in Britain, it may prove 

 somewhat interesting to the readers of the ' Zoologist* to learn that a nest containing 

 two beautiful fresh-laid eggs was taken, ou the 30th of March last, in the neighbour- 



