220 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
The name “ Mountain Linnet,” so often applied to the Twite, 
Linota flavirostris, is, according to Mr. Booth’s experience, a 
misnomer; in no single instance were the barren moorlands on 
which he met with this bird during the summer at any elevation 
on the hill-side. 
North of the Tweed the Missel Thrush appears to be a very 
local species. During a residence of a couple of years in Kast 
Lothian a few scattered birds of this species were occasionally 
noticed late in autumn about plantations near the coast; these 
were regarded as migrants from across the North Sea, working 
their way towards the south. A pair or two were observed in the 
densely wooded strath through which the Beauly river runs down 
towards the coast, and it was also recognised near Dingwall, on 
the islands at Inverness, and in the neighbourhood of Dunkeld, 
and a few of the adjacent glens. From the accession to their 
numbers observed in England during late autumn and early 
winter, it is evident that a good many must reach our shores from 
the north of Europe, and in confirmation of this Mr. Booth 
mentions that he has sometimes had the wings of Missel Thrushes 
forwarded to him by men on the light-ships off the east coast, 
taken from birds which had flown on board these vessels. 
~The nest of the Missel Thrush, as everyone knows, is usually 
placed at some height in a commanding forest tree. Mr. Booth 
thus describes a curious departure from this rule :— 
“While watching a brood of young Redpolls in the spring of 1878, in 
a damp alder-car in Ludham, in the east of Norfolk, I detected the nest of 
a Missel Thrush, built in a small stunted bush within three feet of the 
ground. I had never previously noticed one at so slight an elevation; and 
in this instance it could not have been for want of larger timber, as several 
oaks of fair size were growing over the identical bush in which the nest was 
placed. This lowly site was probably chosen by the old birds as not so 
exposed to the attacks of Crows, these depredators being plentiful and 
unchecked in the district.” 
According to Mr. Booth’s experience, Quail have much 
decreased in numbers of late years :— 
“ The bevies hatched on the fenlands between Newmarket and Cambridge 
(especially about Bottisham, Qui, and Swaffham), afforded, some five-and- 
twenty years ago, fair sport at the commencement of the season. What 
bags were made on the strictly-preserved lands, I had no means of 
