462 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



been virtually absent from the rookeries for the last five weeks. 

 I have noticed this habit of a summer excursion of several weeks' 

 duration in every year that I have been at home at this season, 

 the many well-tenanted rookeries in our immediate neighbourhood 

 being, regularly and almost entirely, deserted during the latter 

 half of June and nearly the whole of July. 



July 26th. My falconer came in this morning with a report 

 of a "fowl" entirely unknown to him seen at our aviary-pond 

 yesterday evening. Colonel Irby, who was staying with us, and 

 my son snatched a gleam of sunshine between the constant heavy 

 showers, and in a few minutes the former came in with a female 

 Indian Black-backed Tree Goose, Sarcidiomis melanonota, which 

 rose wildly from the bank of the pond on the approach of the 

 investigating expedition. This bird was of course an " escape," 

 but I have not up to the date of this writing been able, in spite 

 of many enquiries, to discover the loser of this (as I believe it to 

 be) uncommon and valuable water-fowl. 



July 29th. My neighbour, Mr. G. Hunt, called upon me this 

 evening, and reported having just seen a solitary specimen of 

 Pallas's Sand Grouse in the meadow below his house at Wadenhoe. 

 This bird passed within fifteen yards of my informant, flying 

 comparatively slowly, and appeared to have its feet clogged with 

 clay. Mr. Hunt told me that it " chuckled" loudly as it passed 

 him. This is the first information that reached me of the 

 occurrence of the Sand Grouse in Northamptonshire this year. 

 Complaints reach me from our own gardeners, and from many of 

 our neighbours of the very unusual abundance of Hawfinches, and 

 the damage done by them amongst the green-peas. From about 

 this date till the middle of October I had many reports from 

 various quarters in our neighbourhood of so-called ivhite Starlings. 

 It seems that one or two broods containing pied birds of this 

 species must have been reared in our district. 



July 31st. Eumours of three Sand Grouse seen, in the 

 first instance flying over the deer-park at Lilford, by one of 

 our gamekeepers, and soon afterwards by Mr. Hunt's keeper on 

 the Wadenhoe manor, bear to my ears the impress of truth and 

 correct identification. 



August 2nd. My falconer found and brought in two young 

 Hobbies from an old Carrion Crow's nest in a high oak-tree in 

 the same wood, and at a short distance from the trees from which 



