302 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



distance, taking the size of the bird into consideration, it ought not to be 

 difficult to recognise A. cervinus in a wild state. The first time I saw this 

 species I was not at all expecting to meet with it ; but I saw at once that 

 it was a Pipit I had not met with before, although it was rather shy, and it 

 was not until the following day, when I made a special search for the 

 stranger, that I was able to secure a specimen. In conclusion, I wish to 

 say that this note is not intended as a hostile criticism of Mr. Coburn's 

 careful account of his specimen, but merely as a statement of the result of 

 my own observations upon a species which has an especial interest for 

 British field ornithologists, since it is not unlikely to occur on our coasts 

 any season. And as I have been studying Pipits carefully for some years 

 past, I may perhaps be allowed to add here that I cannot help thinking that 

 one at least of, if not both, the so-called Scandinavian Rock Pipits, figured 

 in Mr. Booth's ' Rough Notes,' ought to be referred to the Alpine or Water 

 Pipit (Anthus spipoletta). For I have never yet been able, in any of the 

 three Norwegian museums which I have visited, or elsewhere, to see a 

 Rock Pipit killed in Scandinavia [A. rupestris) at all like Mr. Booth's 

 birds ; whereas the bird in the foreground of the plate does not differ in 

 any way from A. spipoletta in summer dress. I should say that I judge 

 only from the plate, and have not seen the bird ; but I think one is 

 quite safe in taking the figures in Booth's plates as accurate representa- 

 tions of the specimens in his collection. — 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Ban- 

 bury, Oxon). 



Anthus cervinus and A. pratensis. — Some years since, when in 

 Heligoland, in looking at some examples of these species, Mr. Gatke pointed 

 out that the former might be distinguished, in the autumn plumage in 

 which it visited Heligoland, by the rump being striped; in pratensis it was 

 uniform. In the 'Birds of Heligoland' (English edition), the author 

 says : — " It is distinguished, however, from both the Tree and the Meadow 

 Pipit by the almost black broad central marking of the longest pair of the 

 under tail-coverts, which in the other species in question are of a uniform 

 whitish rust-colour." I agree with Mr. Coburn (p. 256) that a living wild 

 bird in nature is a very different thing to the most skilfully prepared skin ; 

 at the same time I think it would be utterly impossible for any ornithologist, 

 either with or without a glass, to distinguish amongst a flock of A. pratensis 

 an example of A. cervinus in winter plumage. — John Cordeaux (Great 

 Cotes House, R. S. 0., Lincoln). 



Occurrence of the Wall Creeper in Sussex. — Mr. William Mitchell, 

 of • The Look-out,' Winchelsea, invited me, while on a visit to that town 

 on July 31st, to inspect a bird in his possession, " the like of which he had 

 never seen before." His description of the bird's appearance as it climbed 

 about a ruin, and of the crimson and white on its wings, rendered identifi- 



