Birds. 3053 



their dingy, and at best, their distorted forms, as they stand stiffened, 

 and staring with unmeaning eye, on the dusty shelves of a crowded 

 museum ? Who can tell what stay they might not be induced to make 

 among us, and what opportunities might not, in consequence, be in 

 our power of ascertaining numerous particulars of which we are at 

 present profoundly ignorant, were they not incessantly persecuted, 

 killed, or frightened away ? Of all the notices, and they were exceed- 

 ingly numerous, which appeared in the ' Zoologist,' in regard to the 

 death of these birds during the by-past year, I do not recollect 

 one* in which any intimation was given as to their living appearance ; 

 their manner of feeding, the character of their flight, the cries which 

 they uttered, or the general habits which they showed. We need 

 not, therefore, wonder that we have by our own exertions added 

 scarcely anything to the particulars which we shall find recorded of 

 these birds in the pages of the earliest of our native ornithologists. 



By such of your readers as may have thought it worth their while 

 to peruse what has now been written, I am anxious not to be misun- 

 derstood. When a bird, which has not been previously seen, makes 

 its) appearance in our country, or when it is one with the form, or 

 flight, or cry, of which we are not, when it comes in our way, indivi- 

 dually acquainted, I should not, on such an occasion, be disposed to 

 maintain that it ought not to be killed, in order that we might be 

 enabled to establish its identity, and to examine it thoroughly and at 

 our leisure. What T would take the liberty to deprecate, is the con- 

 tinued and the wanton destruction of all such birds, as, although 

 comparatively speaking rare, are nevertheless familiar in their appear- 

 ance to every one acquainted, however slightly, with natural history ; 

 such as have been repeatedly examined and described, both in their 

 external appearance and in their internal structure ; are accurately 

 depicted in standard works, to which there is easy access ; are in the 

 possession, in a stuffed form, of no inconsiderable number of private 

 individuals; and are readily to be seen in almost every public museum 

 of any note throughout the kingdom. 



James Smith. 

 Manse of Monquhitter by Turriff, Aberdeenshire, 

 January 30, 1851. 



* There is I find a solitary one from Mr. Norman, in the ' Zoologist ' (Zool. 2769), 

 who, speaking of a flock of them, says " they were described as making a chattering 

 noise, very much in the manner of the magpie." This is so far confirmatory of the 

 common name. 



