162 THE ZOOLOGIST 



on their return passage ; 15tb, Pied Wagtails and Stonechats 

 seen; 17th, Thrush sitting on five eggs; 18th, Blackbird sit- 

 ting ; 21st, Hedge-Accentor frequenting high trees in their 

 love-flights. 



April 8th, first Swallow ; 10th, first Cuckoo ; 26th, Eing- 

 Ouzel. 



May 13th, Turtle-Doves ; 21st, Spotted Flycatcher. 



Golden Orioles are not, and never were, common birds in 

 East Anglia, but I rather expected to have heard of some, as the 

 Forest of Boulogne was ringing with their flute-like notes on 

 May 28th. I have listened to a French gamekeeper imitating 

 them very well, and in this way they may be drawn within shot. 



Mr. Steele Elliott and others of your correspondents allude 

 to the scarcity of the Corn- Crake, which is noticeable in Norfolk 

 also. I cannot but think that it is attributable to their being 

 shot in spring in the South of France, where anything which 

 can be designated a puule d'eau (i.e. Spotted Crake, Baillon's 

 Crake, Land-Eail, &c.) is in great request, the close-time being 

 suspended for their benefit until the middle or end of April, the 

 time varying in different Departments. That the decrease in 

 the number of Spotted Crakes is due to that cause seems also 

 probable, for the birds are reckoned delicacies of the first order, 

 and, in fact, are made a special object of pursuit in spring, 

 hundreds being sometimes killed in a single day on passage 

 (see ' Kichesses Orn. du Midi de la France,' p. 488). 



The Autumnal Migration. — This is always a time for the 

 ornithologist to be on the alert. Kough-legged Buzzards began 

 to appear in October, and Water-Rails turned up in such odd 

 places as the middle of Cromer town — on a fishing-boat (C. Tice- 

 hurst) — and in a bedroom (A. Patterson). Water-Eails are 

 birds which, trusting more to their legs than to their wings, 

 drop anywhere. Mealy Eedpolls were very much in evidence, 

 particularly near Yarmouth, but less so at Cley. Mr. E. 

 Saunders writes of their being still about in gardens as late as 

 November 14th, and Mr. Dye of many taken by birdcatchers. 

 Whether there were any S. linaria holboelli among them was 

 not ascertained. The chief arrival of Woodcocks evidently took 

 place during the first week of December ; on the 1st the Yar- 

 mouth wind register was E.N.E., force 6 (a gale) ; on the 2nd, 



