302 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
of Quails visited us this year (1885). On Sept. 2nd we flushed two from 
standing barley at Bloxham Grove, which in the falling rain were let off in 
mistake for “ squeakers,” but on the 5th one of them got up again in the 
same field, and was shot; it was a male, probably of the year before, as, 
while possessing the semicircular dark lines on the sides of the face, it 
wanted the black patch on the throat. On the 4th, Robert Walton, who 
was formerly a keeper in Ireland and Nottinghamshire, and knew the bird 
well, told me that two rose at his feet that morning from some cut barley 
at Adderbury, and he put up six of them the next day; these strayed into 
standing oats in an adjacent field, and were then flushed, and one at least 
killed a day or two afterwards. On the 11th I bought two young birds, 
which had been killed the day before at Sibford Gower, and two more, a 
young bird and an old one, were hanging in the game-dealer’s shop on the 
14th; these were shot in the neighbourhood of Hook Norton, where five 
more were procured later in the season. About Chipping Norton Quails 
seem to have been very numerous (vide ‘ Ibis,’ 1886, p. 101). In the south 
of the county, Mr. Darbey informs me (in lit. Sept. 21st.), that he anda 
friend shot two at Cowley on the 2nd; he had also received one from 
Burford, and had heard of others in the neighbourhood. Mr. W. H. 
Warner wrote me word (Oct. 28th) that a friend of his met with a “ bevy ” 
of seven in “ Edward’s Field,” Standlake, and shot three or four of them in 
September. In that part of the county the Quail appears to be a tolerably 
regular visitor, Mr. Warner hearing its note every year at Standlake ; but 
here in the north, and probably in most parts of the county, it is extremely 
irregular in its appearance, and in the numbers which arrive. I hear that 
it is fifteen years at least since we had any number, and about that date a 
birdstuffer preserved four examples. On Sept. 9th a Black Tern, a young 
bird of the year, was shot on the canal some miles above Banbury. On the 
11th a young Hobby was procured in Wickham Park; it was one of three 
birds said to have frequented the place for some weeks, so probably a brood 
was reared there. A female Nightjar, not at all a common bird here, was 
shot at Sibford on the 14th. Mr. Darbey tells me that on the 17th 
he received from Headington a nearly white Yellowhammer, and he had 
also in his shop a Berkshire example of the Greenfinch, “just the colour of 
a pale canary.” On the 27th, among a party of nineteen black and white 
Wagtuils, I detected two adults of Motacilla alba. The party included also 
old male Pied Wagtails, still carrying black backs; females of the same; 
partly moulted young (of M. Yarrellii), exhibiting a narrow line of black on 
the sides of the breast round the bend of the wing; and unmoulted grey 
birds. A young Barn Owl with down still adhering was brought to the 
stuffers on the 28th. On the 29th there were very large flocks of Peewits 
in the Cherwell Meadows; one lot extending in a long double line must 
have numbered from twelve to fifteen hundred birds. On Oct. LOth I saw 
