1640 Birds. 



stream, a kingfisher came and settled on the bank close at my feet ; and a near rela- 

 tive of my own, on a like occasion, had a kingfisher actually come and perch on his 

 angle-rod. There is one habit of the kingfisher, which has often struck me : I mean 

 the instinctive pleasure it seems to take in flying over water, and this, not in search of 

 its prey only, which lives in that element, but, as it should seem, unnecessarily, and 

 for the mere sake of doing so. I have repeatedly observed, that even when alarmed, 

 and fleeing from the object of its fear, the bird will go out of its way, as I may say, in 

 order to fly over the surface of water, rather than continue a straight course over dry 

 land. There is a sequestered lane in this county, with which, in my youth, I was 

 very familiar, and which afforded an excellent field for the exhibition of this pro- 

 pensity of the kingfisher. The lane was perfectly straight for a considerable distance, 

 and on either side of it, there were at intervals, several narrow pits of water by the 

 hedge-side, or one might call them broad ditches. These were the usual haunts of a 

 kingfisher. On starting the bird, as I have very many times done, from one of these 

 pits, I used to observe that it invariably flew over the water till it came to the end of 

 the pit, then suddenly crossing the lane, almost at a right angle, it skimmed along over 

 another pit on the opposite side, and then crossed back again to the side whence it 

 started, for the sole purpose, as it should seem, of passing over the surface of another 

 of these pits ; for the bird, on these occasions, was not in the pursuit of prey, but 

 alarmed at my approach, was hurrying away from supposed danger ; and yet, instead 

 of going off the shortest way, in a straight line, it would (as I have said) cross and re- 

 cross the lane, apparently with no other object in view than the pleasure to be derived 

 from travelling over water, rather than over dry land. Whether the kingfisher in any 

 degree feels a sort of security when water is beneath it, or whether, on an emergency, 

 it ever drops into it in order to escape a sudden danger, as the wild duck and some 

 other water birds are known to do, is more than I will venture to say ; but the fact 

 abo\e recorded, I have repeatedly witnessed. Probably it is this propensity of passing 

 over water, added to its kestrel-like performances, that may have given rise to the 

 fabled notion of the kingfisher's delighting to view its own reflection in the surface of 

 that element. — W. T. Bree ; Allesley Rectory, near Coventry, January 18th, 1847. 



Occurrence of the Gray Phalarope (P. lobatus), near Chipping Norton. — Five indi- 

 viduals of this species have lately been seen in this neighbourhood, three of which 

 were shot. I have two of them, one an old male, the other appears to be a young bird 

 of the year ; all were seen on the water during the late floods. — Thomas Goatley, Chip- 

 ping Norton. 



Occurrence of the Gray Phalarope at Wretharn. — The keeper of W. Birch, Esq., of 

 Wretham Hall, observed four phalaropes (probably gray) on the pond belonging to the 

 farm at Fowl Mere, on the Wretham estate. They were swimming about quite tame 

 with the ducks belonging to the farm. The keeper's mother, who lives at the farm, 

 thought them snipes, and said they had been there for the last three weeks, and had 

 become quite tame. She wished him not to shoot them. Soon after, he shot one (an 

 immature gray phalarope), out of four, on a Mere close to Wretham Hall. Most 

 likely these were the same as were observed on the pond, as they disappeared about 

 the same time. The pond is close to the house and road. — C. B. Hunter ; Doivnham, 

 Norfolk, January 6th, 1847. 



A tame Snipe. — It seems to be not generally known, that the common snipe (Sco- 

 lopax Gallinago) is capable of being domesticated. Bewick, in his ' History of British 

 Birds,' makes no allusion to the subject. In Yarrell's work, bearing the same title, it 



