184 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Thomas Stephenson, of Whitby, for the number and value of the 

 notes he has sent us from time to time ; we have also to thank 

 Mr. George Roberts for drawing our attention to a few published 

 records which had escaped our attention, and Messrs. George 

 Brook, jun., Thomas Carter, and E. J. Gibbins for their response 

 to our note inviting co-operation. 



OKNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE 

 IN THE AUTUMN AND WINTER OF 1883. 



By John Cordeaux. 



From an ornithological point the autumn and winter of 

 1883 has been the least eventful and interesting of any I have 

 experienced during a residence of thirty years on the east coast. 

 There has been an almost entire absence of such species as may 

 be designated rare and occasional visitants, and even our more 

 common and regular visitors, both land and shore birds, have 

 been singularly scarce. To an unprecedentedly mild winter, 

 without any prolonged frosts or snow storms, we may probably 

 look for an explanation of this deficiency. 



To the wildfowl shooters along the coast the season has also 

 been a most unproductive one, the absence of Ducks, Plover, and 

 Snipe affording them but little opportunity of exercising their 

 vocation, the result being also all along apparent in the scanty 

 show in the game shops, almost conclusively supplied from 

 foreign sources. 



On September 14th a Honey Buzzard was captured at 1 a.m. 

 against the lantern of the Spurn lighthouse, and another was shot 

 on the 17th near Kilnsea. There appears to have been a con- 

 siderable iiumigratioii of the larger Falconidce, with many other 

 species, on September 21st; and the same rush of birds was 

 observed at Heligoland. 



On October 21st I shot a female Long-tailed Duck from a 

 flooded meadow near Kilnsea. I got a long shot at the bird as 

 it drove in overhead, just at sundown, and evidently wounded it, 

 as it did not rise again after pitching. I had a long cold walk to 

 recover my spoil, the duck diving with extraordinary rapidity ; 

 notwithstanding a wounded wing its course in the clear wnter 

 could be very clearly seen, and I was reluctant to fire again for 



