468 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



bird close to this house. Every egg thus introduced was hatched, aud 

 many of the yonng Coots successfully reared to maturity. by their foster- 

 parents; for several subsequent years we had two or three Coots' nests in 

 a mass of flags and sedge at two minutes' walk from the house, and used 

 often in autumn or winter to see ten or a dozen Coots together on the river, 

 but although they were never to my knowledge molested, except by foxes, 

 they gradually disappeared, and till the shooting of the individual above 

 mentioned I bad not seen or heard of a Coot on our own waters for at least 

 five or six years. I am anxious to eucourage these birds hereabouts, not 

 only as living ornaments to our stream, but because their presence most 

 undoubtedly is a great attraction to "fowl" of all sorts. The bird above 

 recorded was an adult (female, 1 think), and no doubt " bound for the sea" 

 from one of the large reservoirs in the southern division of this county. 

 On October 13th we noticed the first flock of certainly migratory Wood 

 Pigeons, Coluinba jialuinbus. Our home-bred birds of this species are hardly 

 "flocking" as yet, and will not do so till the acorns — of which we have a 

 locally abundant crop — have fallen ; but the birds above mentioned, perhaps 

 some two hundred, had evidently just arrived, and were " all abroad" in the 

 foggy morning. Oct. loth, the last Hobby, Falco subbuteo, seen up to date 

 below. Oct. 10th, first Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, seen and shot. — Lilfokd 

 (Lilford Hall, Oundle, October 17, 1883). 



Note on .ffigialitis nigris, Harting. — In 'The Zoologist' for October, 

 I note your article " On a rare Africau Plover" (pp. 409 — 418), I do not 

 know whether it is worth while calling your attention to the fact that you 

 will find in my appended note to Finsch's descriptive list of the birds brought 

 back from Abyssinia by me in 1808 (Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. vii., 1872, 

 p. 296) that the perishable colouring of ./•,'. tricullaris exactly tallies with 

 that which you quote as given by Lefehvre (Voy. en Abyss.) from Vignaud's 

 drawing. Von Heuglin's description of the colouring of the legs and feet 

 differs altogether from this, for he describes them as "greenish grey." It 

 may seem a small matter, but I always have held that as small bricks 

 build big houses, correct notification of small, and especially perishable, 

 differences are of importance to those who use the materials so supplied for 

 determining genera and species. With you 1 think Hodgson's bird did nut 

 come from India, but is identical with Shelley's bird from West Africa. — 

 W. Jesse (lonacombe Manor, Morwenstowe, Stratton, North Devon). 



[On referring to the paper indicated by Mr. Jesse (Trans. Zool. Soc, 

 vii., p. - -!90), we find that he has there described the colours of the soft parts 

 in JEgialitM tricullaris, Vieillot, the nearest ally to JEgialitis nigris, as 

 fellows : — " Iris stone-grey, eyelids orange ; beak orange at base, black at 

 tip ; legs and feet pale pink." Dr. Finsch has added the important remark 

 that Mr. Jesse's specimens of tricullaris from Abyssinia "agree with South 

 African specimens from the Cape and Damaralaud. Heuglin's /Eyialitis 



