454 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



July 19th. All beasts and birds are feeling the long drought 

 very severely ; one of the gamekeej)ers assured me that he has 

 this summer lost many Partridge's eggs from the Moles burrowing 

 under the nests and the eggs rolling into the runs of these little 

 beasts, who are hard set for food, and found dead or dying in all 

 directions. 



July 27th. A fine old male Hawfinch was caught in a fruit- 

 net in our kitchen-garden ; he was so perfect in plumage that 

 I could not make up my mind to cage him, and, careless of 

 green peas and raspberries, set him at liberty. These birds, 

 though now fully established as breeders with us, do not appear 

 to have increased much in number during the last ten or twelve 

 years. 



July 28th. The falconer, whom I despatched on an exploring 

 expedition this morning, brought down three young Hobbies from 

 an old Carrion Crow's nest in a tall oak, at a very short distance 

 from that in which he found the nest on the same day of last 

 year (c/. Zool. 1886, pp. 468-9). 



July 30th. As I sat fishing this morning in a boat on the 

 Nene, at a short distance below Lilford, I noticed a bird coming 

 rapidly up the course of the river towards me at no great height ; 

 it approached "straight on end" till within ten yards of us, 

 when it turned ofi', and showed me that it was a Grebe — neither 

 Dabchick nor Great Crested Grebe. This bird flew round us 

 twice, once within easy gunshot, and was without doubt either an 

 Eared, Podiceps nigricollis, or a Sclavonian Grebe, P. auritus 

 (Linn.). I am inclined to consider that it belonged to the latter 

 species, from its size and the pure white of the whole of the 

 under plumage. The Sclavonian Grebe is not very rare in our 

 district in winter, but I have only one, somewhat doubtful, record 

 of the Eared Grebe in Northamptonshire. 



August 2nd. Miss M. Stopford brought to me four eggs taken 

 from a Kobin's nest at Tichmarsh this year, one of which eggs 

 was of the usual type of coloration ; another unusually scanty of 

 markings, which were exceptionally pale in colour ; another pure 

 white ; and the fourth white with scanty spots of dark brown. 



August 5th. We noticed a large raptorial bird soaring at a 

 great height over the meadows near Lilford. I had no glasses, 

 and cannot be quite positive as to species, but have very little 

 hesitation in pronouncing this to have been an Osprey. 



