222 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



repairing old nests. The hounds were then running, and I had not much 

 time to look at them, hoping to pay another visit to the spot soon after- 

 wards, but I was unluckily prevented from doing so. There was no one 

 out then who could give me any information about the heronry, which I 

 supposed existed there. This year we were at the same place on the 6th of 

 April drawing the woods for a fox, when I again saw the Herons, and T 

 had more time to have a good look at them. There were five or six pairs 

 flying round over the trees and wheeling about, and a good many more 

 never rose from their nests, but made a loud croaking at the hounds when- 

 ever one passed under a tree on which there was a nest. A farmer who 

 was out, and who rents the adjoining land, told me that so long as he 

 could remember there had always been a few Herons there nesting every 

 year, but that during the last two or three years their numbers had 

 increased considerably, and he thought that now there were between thirty 

 and forty pairs nesting there. All the nests that I could see were on the 

 tops of thick fir trees. This heronry at Halsewell was not mentioned by 

 Mr. Halting in his list of British Heronries in 'The Zoologist' for 1872, 

 or in any of the additions subsequently made to that list; nor was it 

 mentioned by myself in 'The Birds of Somerset.' I only knew of two at 

 that time, which were included in Mr. Harting's list, namely, one at 

 Picton in the west, and another at Brockley Woods in the east of the 

 county, — to which Mr. Harting added a third, namely, that at Knowle 

 House, near Dunster. 1 think it, therefore, worth while to mention this 

 one at Halsewell, as it makes four well-established heronries in this county. 

 — Cecil Smith | Bishop's Lydeard). 



[On the subject of this heronry Mr. W. Taylor, of Edgbaston, writing 

 on the 20th March last, states, on the authority of Mr. E. Barharu, who 

 resides iu Somersetshire, that " the heronry at Halsewell, which was set 

 going about twelve years ago by an enterprising pair of Herons, numbers 

 this year some fifty nests. Mr. Barhatn's late bailiff was there during the 

 second week of March, aud counted more than sixty birds sitting on the 

 tops of the trees.— Ed.] 



Occurrence of the Pine Grosbeak in Cambridgeshire.— I am glad to 

 be able to forward details of the capture of a Pine Grosbeak, which has, I 

 believe, not been previously recorded. The bird was shot by one Robert 

 Scotcher, groom to the Rev. A. H. D. Hutton, of Little Abington Vicarage, 

 Cambs., in that gentleman's grounds, on the 13th of January, 1882, 

 alter having been seen, unaccompanied by any other bird, on several 

 occasions in the covers around Abington Hall. Scotcher, not knowing 

 what kind of a bird it was, sent it to an amateur in the village for preser- 

 vation, but after having being wretchedly stuffed, and nearly spoiled by 

 mice which were allowed to eat its legs and tail, it was sent to Travis, of 

 Satl'rou Walden, who repaired the mischief. In the end Mr. Hutton 



