Birds. 3805 



Captures of various Birds in Oxfordshire. — An immature specimen of the gray 

 phalarope was killed on Port Meadow, close to Oxford, early in last September, and 

 another in fine adult winter plumage in the latter part of December, 1852. A speci- 

 men of Temminck's stint was killed on Port Meadow in September, 1852. Whilst 

 snipe-shooting near Abingdon in November, we flushed a specimen of the spotted 

 crake (Crex Porzana), which my companion shot, and gave to me. Another specimen 

 of this bird was killed a few days afterwards by a friend of mine, not far from the 

 place where we found the first. I have seen two or three peregrine falcons in the 

 neighbourhood of Oxford lately. I shot a specimen of the green sandpiper (by no 

 means a common bird about here) in Port Meadow, on Wednesday last, the 2nd of 

 this month. — T. L. Powys ; Christ Church, Oxford, February 4, 1853. 



" On the present season in relation to the Migration of Birds, and other Natural 

 Phenomena.''* — Dr. Forster commences a letter to the Linnean Society, bearing the 

 above title, by referring to a passage in White's ' Natural History of Selborne,' where 

 it is remarked that the swallow-tribe, and particularly the martins, must suffer great 

 devastation in the course of their winter migrations, inasmuch as, in certain seasons 

 " the numbers of single birds which return in the spring bear no manner of proportion 

 to those who retire in autumn.'' Dr. Forster's Journal, now of forty years' standing, 

 shows that this disproportion is greatest in late springs, particularly when accompa- 

 nied with much wet and windy weather. The present season has been especially re- 

 markable. After a winter, the mildest ever remembered in Belgium, the spring was 

 cold and showery, and nearly all the periodical phaenomena were later than usual ; 

 while mauy tribes of plants suffered severely from some obscure atmospherical influ- 

 ence, apparently referable to the same class of causes which produce epidemics in the 

 human subject and epizooties among animals. The Hyacinthus plumosus died off in 

 most gardens, and also the Muscari racemosus. As soon as the flowers showed them- 

 selves the stock began to wither and in a few days died away, whole beds going off in 

 the same way. Great numbers of tulips perished in the ground ; the leafing of trees 

 was very late ; and the mulberry had not at the date of the letter shown any signs of 

 budding. The swallow (Hirundo rustica) arrived on the 18th of April, and had be- 

 come pretty numerous. The swift (Hirundo Apus) came on the 7th of May, in less 

 numbers than usual. Dr. Forster had not yet (on the 21st of May) seen the sand- 

 martin (Hirundo riparia), which is usually found in April ; and even of the martin 

 (Hirundo urbica), usually plentiful at Bruges in the first week of May, the most care- 

 ful search had not enabled him to detect a single bird. The nightingale and black- 

 cap came to their time, but the gray wag- tail was not seen until the day of the date of 

 the letter. The remarkable scarcity of flying insects, the usual food of the swallows, 

 caused them to seek for other species, and a naturalist of the neighbourhood had as- 

 sured Dr. Forster that he saw them hunting for their prey on walls and trunks of trees, 

 like the creeper, a fact which Dr. Forster considers as tending to support his opinion 

 of the reasoning powers of animals. Up to this time the cockchafer (Melolontha 

 vulgaris), although usually abundant, had not made its appearance ; nor had another 

 constant inhabitant of the gardens, Buprestis nitens, yet been seen. The large black 

 cockroach had increased to an alarming extent in many of the old houses and on the 



* In a Letter from Thomas Forster, Esq., M.B., F.L.S., dated from Bruges, May 

 21st, 1851. 



