176 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



a large fir tree. The cause of death seemed to be that it had got its left 

 wing by some means over its neck, and had been unable to get it back. 

 The neck passed between the eighth and ninth of the quill-feathers. How- 

 ever strange it may seem that a bird should meet with such an accident, 

 I could come to no other conclusion than that just stated. The bird was 

 unwounded, in good condition, with grit in its gizzard, and lay in a spot to 

 which it was hardly likely to have been carried by human agency. It had 

 been dead just too long to admit of preservation, but I have stuffed another 

 bird in the position in which I found this one. — Robert Miller Christy 

 (Saffron Walden). 



Kehle and the Nightingale.— Let me call attention to Keble's well- 

 known lines on the Nightingale liu his verses for the first Sunday after the 

 Epiphany), as illustrating the closeness and accuracy of his observation : — 



If, the quiet brooklet leaving, 



Up the stony vale I wind, 

 Haply half in fancy grieving 



For the shades I leave behind, 

 By the dusty wayside drear 



Nightingales with joyous cheer 

 Sing, my sadness to reprove, 



Gladlier than in cultur'd grove. 



Many readers of ' The Zoologist ' who have heard the Nightingale singing 

 from a dusty hedgerow by the side of a turnpike road " all day long," and 

 have been struck by the strange preference of the bird for such a spot, will 

 assent to the truth of these lines. —Murray A. Matiiew (Stonehall, 

 Wolfscastle, Pembrokeshire). 



Early Assumption of Breeding Plumage in the Cormorant. — A Cor- 

 morant was brought me on February 17 th in the most perfect breeding 

 plumage I have ever seen, the white patches on the thighs being peculiarly 

 brilliant. This is nine days earlier than the date mentioned by Yarrell, 

 who states that a Cormorant in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, 

 attained its greatest perfection of plumage by February 26th. — Stephen 

 Clogg (Looe). [See observations by Mr. Gatcombe, p. 167. — Ed.] 



Great Grey Shrike near Croydon.— The other day 1 obtained from 

 Mr. Thorpe, of Southend, Croydon, a good skin of a Great Grey Shrike, 

 caught by a birdcatcher at Croham Hurst, about two miles from here on 

 November 18th, 1882. — Philip Crowley (Waddon House, Croydon). 



Diver with the Tarsi feathered. — In a small collection of local birds 

 exhibited by Mr. Gray, birdstuffer, at Dover, is a Red-throated Diver 

 (Cohjuibtm septentrionalis), with the anterior surface of both tarsi feathered 

 throughout their whole length. The bird is, as mounted, a very small 

 specimen. — Alfred H. Cocks (Folkestone). 



