1136 Birds. 



snow, in the winter of 1827-8, in the act of seizing a fieldfare, a bird fully as large as 

 itself. The red-backed species was then, and probably still is, by no means uncom- 

 mon in that neighbourhood during summer, living together in families of ten or 

 twelve, with only one or two adult males among the number. They frequent long 

 hedge-rows, and uplands where the ground is covered with bushes, and do not fly far 

 when disturbed. They usually perch on the topmost twigs of hedges, and the outer- 

 most branches of trees, uttering their peculiar chattering cry, both when perched and 

 on the wing. In flying from one tree to another, they usually drop straight from the 

 branch to within ten or twelve feet from the ground ; and when they have reached 

 their destination, they rise almost perpendicularly to the branch on whicji they intend 

 to perch. Their castings, formed of the elytra and other hard parts of Coleoptera, are 

 found in abundance about their haunts. 1 never found the nest, but the young seem 

 to quit it soon, for about the first week in August I have found nestlings perched in 

 hedges, quite unable to fly. Even in the very young birds, the males may be distin- 

 guished by a considerable admixture of grey with the brown of the head. The females 

 vary considerably, some being plain ferruginous brown above, while others are pencil- 

 led or striated transversely with a darker shade, and the same variety prevails in the 

 under parts, the scalloped markings extending in some over the whole surface, in others 

 scarcely to the breast. They are very pugnacious when wounded and caught, biting 

 almost as severely as a hawk. — F. Holme ; C. C. C. Oxford. 



Notes on Sand Martins at Oxford, on Swifts building under the eaves of Cotta- 

 ges, and on the Hibernation of Sumllows. Among the last " fashionable arrivals " 

 here, is a numerous party of sandmartins, a bird rarely seen in the neighbourhood of 

 Alma Mater, and which are now disporting themselves on the Cherwell, in company 

 with their congeners, from whom their more slender proportions, narrow curved wings, 

 and oscillating flight, would distinguish them, even apart from the differences of co- 

 lour. Their last visit was several years since, when a considerable number frequented 

 Chris tchurch meadow throughout the summer, and probably built in the banks of the 

 Cherwell. They had perhaps followed the course of the Great Western Railway, then 

 in course of construction, as I saw many of their holes in the excavations in the sandy 

 soil near South Moreton and Wallingford. While on the subject of swallows, a tribe 

 of birds which have always been special favourites with lovers of Nature, I may men- 

 tion my having once noticed the strange fancy of the swift, observed by White, in his 

 39th letter to Barrington, to run from one extreme to another in the choice of a place 

 for nidification. Some years since I saw several pairs building under the eaves of 

 some cottages, so low that the nest might easily have been reached by the hand, and 

 flying in and out with as much confidence as the common martin in the outskirts of 

 Thame. As the fact was new to all my naturalist friends, I was gratified to find it 

 noticed by White. I have often seen the house-swallows, after the departure of the 

 swifts, circling high in the air, in small parties, on fine evenings, as if in imitation of 

 their betters, on whose aerial domains they had hitherto forborne to trespass. On the 

 hybernation of this species, I was told many years since by old Wall, then keeper of 

 the Kildare-street Museum in Dublin (whose sabre-riven skull, a memento of Vittoria, 

 will be remembered by most who have seen him), that after a heavy snow, in the win- 

 ter of 1825-6, on going into the mansarde to see whether the snow melted through, 

 he found four chimney-swallows perched close together on a cross beam, with their 

 heads under their wing ; but on approaching his hand to them they flew off, and es- 

 caped into the open air. — Id. 



