Birds. 6849 



Jack Snipe {S.gallinula). A winter visitor only, so far as I am aware, 

 and by no means so numerous as the preceding. The jack snipe would 

 appear to be a sort of solitary animal ; at least I have never seen more 

 than two of them together (of course in winter), but more commonly 

 only one; in fact, they are nearly always singly. Unlike the others, 

 however, I have seen them return to the same spot three times after 

 being as often fired at. 



Thomas Edward. 



Rare Birds recently observed i?i the Isle of Wight. 

 By A. G. More, Esq., F.L.S. 



During the fourteen years which have elapsed since the Rev. C. A. 

 Bury published in the 'Zoologist' for 1844 and 1845, his interesting 

 notes upon Isle of Wight Ornithology, several birds of great rarity 

 have at different times been noticed, and particulars have been ob- 

 tained which have rendered more complete the history of other species 

 previously known. It was at the suggestion of my friend Mr. Bury, 

 and with the view of collecting under one head the more important of 

 these observations, that the following remarks have been thrown 

 together in the form of a supplemental contribution to our local 

 Fauna. The three or four years last past have proved unusually pro- 

 ductive of rare birds. For the knowledge of many of these I am 

 indebted to the accurate observation of my friend Mr. F. Bond, to 

 whom, as well as to Mr. Bury, my best acknowledgments are due, and 

 from Mr. H. Rogers, the intelligent naturalist, of Freshwater, I have 

 also received much valuable information. 



Eagle. In a ' History of the Isle of Wight,' by the Rev. Richard 

 Warner (1795), it is stated that " the eagle has been known to incubate 

 among the crags of the Culver Cliff; the last known to build came 

 there in 1780, and a countryman who descended to the nest found it 

 to contain one solitary young bird." Warner suggests that " this 

 eagle must have come from North Wales or from the craggy cliffs of 

 the Western Isles, since the offspring appeared {according to the 

 information he could obtain) to be of the ring-tail species, a sort very 

 common in those places." There can, however, be little doubt that 

 the sea eagle, besides being the more common, was the more likely of 

 the two species to select such a locality for its nest. In support of 

 this view I see that M'Gillivray states the nestling sea eagle to have 

 XVIII. I 



