NOTES AND QUERIES. 29 
birds, nothing daunted, built a second time, and laid five eggs. The 
annoyance of their noisy throats, however, caused the proprietor to cut 
the tree down. The birds then retired to a neighbouring orchard and 
built a third time; but, the nest being again destroyed, they returned to 
their original nesting-place, and for the fourth time built in a thorn 
tree ; there, for a time, they seemed to defy the spoliator, until some boys 
managed, with great difficulty, to get at the nest in the thorn and destroy 
it and its six eggs. This was on May 15th. On the 16th the proprietor 
was walking in the garden, and under the very tree where the Magpies 
last built he found both birds quite dead, side by side. They wore a per- 
fectly natural appearance, not a feather displaced or ruffled, and there was 
no other assignable cause than that above stated to account for death. 
It is only fair to the proprietor to add that it was no feeling of cruelty 
that induced him to destroy the nests, but simply to stop the unceasing 
noise which the birds made-—Epmunp RunDtxz (Porthleven, Helston). 
Chiffchaff in Ireland in Winter.—On the 21st of November last I 
shot a Chiffchaff while it was flitting about the branches of a fir tree. I 
was at the time watching a party of Golden-crested Wrens busily engaged 
in search for insects, when a Chiffchaff appeared on the same tree, and I 
shot it to make sure of the species. On the 20th of January, 1883, 
an unusually fine and mild day, I heard a Chiffchaff in full song, in a 
grove of trees near the village of Glandore. These two instances of its 
occurrence in winter go far to confirm Yarrell’s supposition “if, indeed, 
it ever entirely leaves the island."—C. Donovan, jun. (Westview, Glandore, 
Leap, Co. Cork). ; 
Spoonbill on the Devonshire Avon.—A bird of this species was seen 
on the morning of November 4th standing motionless by the water's 
edge, below the Weir at Aveton Gifford, and some time elapsed ere Mr. 
Ellis (the lessee of the Salmon fishery) returned with his gun and shot 
it. The plumage indicates a bird of the year, and its trachea lacks the 
figure-of-eight convolutions peculiar to the adult. Its sex is female, and, 
from the perfectly empty condition of its stomach, it had evidently not 
fed for some time.—E. Exuior (Kingsbridge, Devon). 
Domestication of the Partridge.— Towards the end of October I saw 
a remarkable instance of the tameness to which Partridges may be brought 
with care and patience. The birds, two in number, were hatched by a 
Bantam, and successfully reared by Mr. James Emerson’s gardener at 
Easly Hall, Cleveland. For several weeks they have lived in a walled 
garden, following the gardener about while he attends to his duties, and 
have become so tame as to allow strangers to approach within a yard of 
them. They feed regularly out of the gardener’s hand, and even took food 
from a lady who was a comparative stranger to them. Until recently they 
