NOTES AND QUERIES. 503 



season seen by us. As we have no beech-mast hereabouts this autumn we 

 shall see very few Bramblings. We have had a small arrival of Snipes and 

 Jack Snipes during the first week of November, also a few Teal, Anas crecca; 

 and, as usual when the latter bird appears with us, a Falcon, F. peregrinus, 

 haunting our Nen valley for some time past. Fieldfares appeared in force 

 about Nov. 8th : previously to this date we had only observed a few stragglers 

 of this species. About the above-mentioned day a very large flight of bona 

 fide travelling Wood Pigeons, Columba palumbus, visited one of our oak 

 plantations, but very soon took their departure. On Nov. 14th I am con- 

 vinced that I heard the well-known " wail" of a Buzzard, Buteo vulgaris, high 

 in air over Great Wadenhoe Wood, where I was shooting with Mr. Hunt and 

 his party. This bird is now of exceedingly rare occurrence in our county, 

 though formerly common enough. It is possible that the cry was produced 

 by a Jay, of which there were many in the wood ; but we have as yet had 

 no immigration of this species, and I do not know where our home-bred 

 Jays could have learned such a perfect imitation of the Buzzard's cry. 

 However, on this possibility I must refer your readers to my " Notes on the 

 Ornithology of Spain," in 'The Ibis' for April, 186(5, p. 175. — Lilford 

 (Lilford Hall, Oundle, Northamptonshire, November 15, 1883). 



Habits of the Little Grebe.— In 'The Zoologist' for November 

 (p. 466) Lord Lilford describes the thrice-repeated voluntary flight of a 

 Dabchick, Podiceps fluviatilis, and adds that he " never before the above 

 occurrence saw one rise and fly from thick covert, unpressed by a dog." 

 It is a curious coincidence that, the very day after reading Lord Lilford's 

 notes, I myself saw two Dabchicks rise and take wing, nearly, but not 

 quite, simultaneously. While Snipe-shooting on the 3rd I had to follow 

 the banks of a broad stream for some 400 yards in order to pass from one 

 part of my beat to another, and, as I advanced, I saw at intervals what 

 looked like the rise of a trout, sometimes close under the bank, sometimes 

 in mid-stream. On coming to a point where I intended to diverge, I stopped 

 for a moment on the bank of the stream, when up rose a Dabchick and 

 flew up stream. I sent a cartridge of No. 11 after him ; but fearing that 

 this dust-shot would not kill him, I repeated it quickly, when a second 

 Dabchick rose from the opposite bank and flew off. This is the first time 

 that I ever saw a Dabchick on the wing, though my snipe-shooting years, 

 I am sorry to say, extend through half a century. The bird I shot was one 

 of the year. — W. Oxenden Hammond (St. Albau's Court, Wiugham, Kent). 



Hybrids among Birds. — As instancing the interest now taken by 

 bird-keepers in producing hybrids between our British Finches, I may 

 observe that in the ' Live Stock Journal' of October 12th last a well-known 

 exhibitor of cage-birds, Mr. T. Beasley, of Northampton, offers for sale four 

 hybrids between the Goldfinch and Bullfinch, two hybrids between the 



