ORNITHOLOGY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 19 



that frequent our home-ponds (see Jan. 15th ult., antea) are 

 wanderers from Lamport, and belong to Sir Charles Isham. Mr. 

 Walter Stopford, who took a stroll in pursuit of wildfowl along 

 our river and brooks between Thrapston and Aldwincle, brought 

 in three Teal out of six seen, five Tufted Ducks from a bunch of 

 ten, and one Snipe of four seen. He reported many Mallard 

 sitting upon the ice, two Pochards at which he failed to get a shot, 

 and some forty Wood Pigeons busily engaged upon some "greens" 

 in the Aldwincle allotments. Twenty-two degrees of frost and 

 heavy snow-showers in late afternoon. 



6th. Twenty-five degrees of frost. Amongst the birds that 

 come to feed on the scraps thrown out for them on our upper 

 terrace in the flower-garden I to-day noticed one that at first 

 sight, in profile, I took to be a King Ouzel, but soon discovered 

 to be a male Blackbird with a broad white half-collar on the right 

 side of neck and a few white feathers about left side of head. 

 This bird was taken alive and uninjured in the afternoon, and 

 transferred to the aviary. Our wild-fowlers brought in three 

 Mallard, two Wigeon, one Pochard, one Tufted Duck, and one 

 Snipe, and report many more up the river, but the whole valley 

 disturbed by skaters. Twenty-nine degrees of frost registered at 

 midnight in our kitchen-garden. 



7th. I received a very fine male Waxwing, stuffed, from 

 Mr. G. Bazeley, with the information that it had been killed 

 near Daventry with a catapult about the 2nd inst. 



8th. Our garden barometer stood at zero at daybreak, but 

 does not register below that point. Three Coots (rare birds with 

 us of late years) were disporting themselves with many Water- 

 hens on a trickle of half-frozen water below Lilford Locks. Our 

 gunners brought in five Mallard, one Wigeon, and a Snipe. 



9th. Twenty-seven degrees of frost. I received as a present 

 from Mr. G. Bazeley a perfectly black female Bullfinch, caught, as 

 the donor informs me, in August last, at Duston, near North- 

 ampton. The gunners brought in two Snipes, a Wigeon, and a 

 Goldeneye, and tell of seeing a Water Rail, the only one as yet 

 reported to me this season. 



11th. The frost diminishes, only eleven degrees registered. 

 The Lamport Swans (see 5th inst., anted) were caught up and 

 sent back to their owner, but I hear of three more of the same 

 species between Thrapston and Aldwincle to-day. 



