NOTES AND QUERIES. 71 



colouring on the sides are all clearly defined ; there are many blue feathers 

 among the brown on the back, and one of the scapulars on the right side 

 has a broad white mark ; the breast and underparts are mottled all over with 

 pale brown and dingy white, much like those of a female Pintail. The 

 eyes were brown, the beak lead-colour; the legs and feet yellowish brown, 

 without the least tinge of blue. I believe the legs and feet of the Long- 

 tailed Duck, which species has been most frequently mistaken for the Har- 

 lequin, are greyish blue in both sexes, and at all ages. The bird was in 

 very good condition. It seems difficult to account for a bird wbich breeds 

 not uncommonly in Iceland being so rare a visitor to Britain. — Juman 

 Tuck (St. Mary's, Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent). 



Birds observed in North Devon.— A fine Buzzard was brought into 

 Ilfracombe about the middle of August, having been trapped on the borders 

 of Exmoor, and I heard that both this bird and the Raven (of which I saw 

 recently stuffed examples) were still found in some numbers in that district. 

 On the 16th, when on the Little Hangman, I saw half-a-dozen Choughs 

 flying round the cliff below me. Walking up the East Lynn from the sea 

 to Watersmeet I counted upwards of a dozen Grey Wagtails, but not one 

 with a black throat ; of Dippers I only saw two. The Wood Wren seemed 

 common, especially in the oak woods at Clovelly. Stock Doves haunted 

 the cliff's to the west of Ilfracombe, and probably bred in some likely looking 

 holes and fissures. The only waders I came across were four Turnstones 

 and a large kock of Curlews at Braunton Burrows on the 21st, and a 

 Common Sandpiper at Barnstaple on the 19th ; many, however, passed over 

 on several nights, and I recognised Whimbrels, Redshanks, Ringed Plovers, 

 and Common Sandpipers. I met with the Cormorant on three occasions; 

 in each case a single bird and at widely distant localities. An adult Gannet 

 came in sight on the morning of the 15th, but I did not see another. When 

 off Mortehoe one morning we passed a large tlock of Gulls fishing, chiefly 

 Kiltiwakes, with a few Herring Gulls and Lesser Blackbacks, the only 

 occasion on which I saw any number together. — Olivek V. x\plin (Great 

 Bourton, near Banbury). 



Scarcity of Fieldfares. — My experience upon the east coast last 

 autumn recalls to my mind a note by xMr. J. Young (Zool. 1881 pp. 228), 

 wherein he relates that during the winter of 1883-4, being in different 

 parts of the counties of Monmouth, Gloucester, Wilts, Berks and Kent, he 

 never saw a Fieldfare or Redwing ; during the same period they were plen- 

 tiful in North Oxon (Zool. 1884, p. 339). When I left home on November 

 15th last. Fieldfares and Redwings were here in numbers, and I noticed 

 them from the train all up the Nene Valley as tar as Peterborough. In two 

 days, at Freistou Shore, Lincolnshire, the only Fieldfares noticed were a 

 few which were heard flying over head after dark, and which may have been 



