The Zoologist— September, 1868. 1377 



week the numbers appear to be steadily on the increase. I have received from 

 Scilly for some weeks several specimens, and seven or eight specimens were brought 

 over yesterday from the Abbey Gardens at Trescoe. I have seen no specimen in a 

 vermilion state of red, but in those specimens where the colour of red prevailed at all 

 there was generally a subdued dull tile-red tone clouded over with brown and bluish 

 gray more or less. One of the specimens from Scilly yesterday was remarkable for its 

 colouring; the upper tail-coverts were bright canary-yellow, and the rest of the body 

 was intermixed with blotches of red, brown, gray and yellow. A very large proportion 

 of the specimens which have come under my notice have been a dull brown, wilh an 

 extra tone either of red, yellow or green on the upper tail-coverts.— Edward Hearle 

 Rodd; Penzance, July 29, 1868. 



Migration of Crossbills.— There appears no mention in the ' Field ' of the migration 

 of crossbills now taking place. The first notice I had of their arrival was hearing of 

 the receipt of several specimens by Mr. Vingoe, of Penzance, from Scilly. This made 

 me keep a sharp look-out in the eastern part of Cornwall, where the fir plantations on 

 the edge of the moors would be a likely locality ; and on the 18th of July I captured 

 the first specimen, since which date their numbers have been steadily increasing, and 

 there are now several parties of from six to fifteen individuals in all the different states 

 of plumage. It has been nearly impossible, from the way they hide among the fir 

 trees, to fiud them, except by listening early in the morning for their peculiar sharp 

 note. There are two letters in the ' Standard ' saying they have appeared in Glouces- 

 tershire and Tipperary; and it would seem that, contrary to what we should expect, 

 the migration has taken place first in the west.— Correspondent from Trebartha, in the 

 'Field.' 



Crossbill in Ireland in 1868.— 1 have had many reports of crossbills in the north- 

 east of Ireland this year— the fruit of my last communication (Zool. S. S. 1133) on 

 these birds breeding in Kildare; but unfortunately they were anonymous, and of 

 course worthless, except to my own conscience. In no case was breeding mentioned. 

 Irrespective of these communications, I have seen many birds from Templepatrick and 

 various parts of Armagh and Downshire— perhaps forty in all. The most lamentable 

 sight one could imagine was a bundle of twenty of these beautiful birds cruelly' 

 mangled: some were intense rose-pink, like the pine bullfinch— others duller red- 

 others yellow and green, but all beautifully glossed j in some all the tints were 

 blended, having a rainbow-like effect: all were adult birds— all quite worthless. Iu 

 July I succeeded in saving three tolerable birds from a lot killed in Templepatrick: 

 they are adult males in full plumage, but the dress is changing from rose-pink to 

 yellow and copper— the pink, however, greatly predominating. This change of colour 

 is not the effect of moult, but from the sun ; it is common in all our pink glossy 

 feathered birds, as the linnet, redpole, &c, which all turn from pink to yellow and 

 copper-colour in the autumn; it is precursory to the autumn moult. The linnet, how- 

 ever, is often permanently golden on the breast. There can be no doubt that these 

 crossbills bred in Ireland, and that in all likelihood it commonly breeds in this 

 country.— H. Blake- Knox ; Belfast, July, 1868. 



Rosecoloured Pastor near Yarmouth.— Yesterday my nephew, Henry Harmer, shot 



in the garden of Mrs. Charles Brown, in Southtown (a suburb of this town), a female 



of this species. It was feeding under a mulberry tiee, where it had been observed 



twice the day before. On being disturbed the first time it flew off with a mulberry in 



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