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BIRD-NOTES FROM THE HUMBER DISTRICT: | 
AUTUMN OF 1896. 
JOHN CORDEAUX, M.B.O.U., 
Great Cotes House, R.S.O., Lincoin; Ex-President of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. 
In preparing these notes I have to acknowledge indebtedness 
to several correspondents who have kindly supplied me with 
information—chiefly to Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh, of Grainsby Hall; 
Mr. H. B. Hewetson, of Leeds (from Easington); Mr. Philip 
_ Loten, of Easington; and Mr. Matthew Bailey, of Flamborough. 
It will be observed that the season has been marked by two 
very pronounced movements. ‘The first of them, probably both 
immigratory and emigratory, during the first week in September, of 
various small summer visitors, such as Pied Flycatchers, Sedge- 
warblers, Garden-warblers, Willow Wrens, Whitethroats, Wheatears 
and Redstarts, Wryneck, Fernowl, Woodchat Shrike, and the little 
Tree-warbler (Phylloscopus viridanus), a summer resident in Kashmir 
and North-West India. The meteorological conditions were easterly 
winds with heavy rains. 
The second great movement was in October, from the 14th to 
17th inclusive. This brought Woodcock, Short-eared Owls, Black- 
birds, Ring-ousels, Thrushes, Redwings, Golden-crested Wrens, 
Bramblings, Redbreasts, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Grey Crows, 
Grey Shrikes, and many others. The weather conditions, north and 
north-easterly winds from light to a gale, and much rain. With this 
‘rush’ came the Indian or Eastern Houbara Bustard on the 17th. 
Mr. Thos. O. Hall, of the Flamborough Lighthouse, informed me 
that ‘the great rush was on the night of the 16th to 4 a.m on the 
17th, which consisted of Blackbirds, Ousel, Redwing, Thrushes, 
Skylarks, and Finches, but no Starlings and Rooks.’ 
It is rather remarkable that two birds from Central Asia should 
have turned up in the district within a few miles of each other on 
Sept. 5th and Oct. 17th, namely, the Bustard and the Tree-warbler. 
Much nonsense was written at the time in both the London and 
local press on the enormity of shooting this Bustard—ignorantly 
called by the writers the Great Bustard—a former inhabitant of the 
wolds of Yorkshire. The Indian Houbara Bustard comes from 
Central Asia, where it is abundant, and there was not the slightest 
chance of this far wanderer ever finding its way back or becoming 
naturalised in this country. No doubt its fate would have been 
decided by the first prowling Fox that came that way, or by Stoat or 
Weasel. The scientific results of an examination of the body by 
January 1897. 
