ig8



Correspondence.



On the day of the great blizzard in tiie beginning of this year I pnt

on my ski and went out over the downs. I came to the edge of a high down

commanding a wide and long expanse of water-meadow. All was white,

relieved only by glimpses of leaden water and by one vivid green ribbon of

grass, perhaps four yards wide and about two hundred long. Here the

water, turned into a carrier, had flowed so strongly that it had not frozen

but had overflowed, melted the snow and soaked the glass to right and left.

1 noticed that many birds were feeding here and took them to be Starlings.

I dropt down the steep hill, and as I reached the road, which at this point

runs along some thirty yards from my green ribbon, I heard a Snipe ‘ scape,’

then another and another. I looked carefully over the low hedge and then

to my amazement saw that, with the exception of a few Thrushes and a

Meadow Pipit or two, all these birds were .Snipe. They were very busy,

hurrying about, probing here and there and then getting up, sometimes

•silently, sometimes with a quiet ‘scape,’ to settle but a few yards further on.

As near as I could judge there were some seventy of them come in from all

around to the only good bit of feeding ground left. I need not detail the

•sequel to this, as it is not in the story ; it was a remarkable sight and it is

pretty safe to say I shall never see anything like it again. But the point is

this, that among all these birds I did not observe a single Water Rail.


In view of this letter I have spoken to a friend who was born on the

river, has lived on it all his life, and for fifteen years fished it on four

days in every week. He is a keen and accurate observer, and thoroughly

well acquainted with the birds of our valley, for when not fishing he

was watching birds. He assures me that he has never seen a Water Rail

out on the grass, or any where but close to the edge of the water, excepting

on one occasion. One day in the early summer he was sitting very quietly,

waiting for a rise, when a Water Rail came out of some cover closely

followed by another. The second was, no doubt, the male for he went

through very curious antics, fanning his tail and flirting his wings. They

only came out for about two feet and then returned to their hide.


A(JBYN TrEVOR-BA'JLTYE,


io/Vz March, 1909. Chilbolton, Hants.



AN UNRECOGNIZED AMAZON.


Sir, —In Russ’ Haudbuch fur Vogelliebhaber (p. 236) I find an Ama¬

zon Parrot described by the author under the name of Psittacus hagenbecki

(the trivial name “Hagenbeck’s Amazon Parrot” being added below. Of

course the type was a specimen without locality purchased from Hageubeclc

of Hamburg.


Russ says that it differs from ochrocephalus in its white beak with

blackish tip, the almost entire absence of red from the edge of the wing

and from the tail, as well’as the different marking of the latter (each feather

with an ill-defined reddish spot); from panamensis by its clearer green



