KEDPOLLS AND JACK-SNIPE. 1 3 



come every winter I am unable to say, and am inclined to 

 doubt it; but in 1884, anyone wbo went the round of the 

 Parks, keeping an eye on the birches, could hardly fail to see 

 them, and they have been reported not only as taking refuge 

 here in the winter, but even as nesting in the summer. A nest 

 was taken from the branch of a fir-tree here in 1883, and in 

 this present year, if I am not mistaken, another nest was built. 

 I failed to find it, but I several times saw a pair of sportive 

 Bedpolls at the south-east corner of the Parks. 



It is one of the prettiest sights that our whole calendar of bird- 

 life affords, to watch these tiny linnets at work in the delicate 

 birch-boughs. They fear no human being, and can he approached 

 within a very few yards. They almost outdo the Titmice in 

 the amazing variety of their postures. They prefer in a general 

 way to be upside down, and decidedly object to the common- 

 place attitudes of more solidly built birds. Otherwise they 

 are not remarkable for beauty at this time of year; their 

 splendid crimson crest — the'' Bluttropf,' as the Germans aptly 

 call it, — is hardly discernible, and the warm pink of their breasts 

 has altogether vanished. 



Before we leave the Parks I must record the fact that an 

 eccentric Jack-snipe, who ought to have considered that he is 

 properly a winter bird in these parts, was several times flushed 

 here by the Cherwell in the summer of 1884, and the natural 

 inference would be that a pair had bred somewhere near. 

 Col. Montagu, the most accurate of naturalists, asserted that 

 it has never been known to remain and breed in England ; yet 

 the observer in this case, a well-known college tutor who 



