5042 Letters on Natural History. 



He had also a pair of buff herons, shot near Dover, in January, 

 1832. 



" Strickland writes me word that two specimens of the Carolina 

 cuckoo (Coccyzns Americanus) have been lately shot in Ireland, and 

 one in Wales, but does not give the dates. The American swallow- 

 tailed kite (Falco furcatus) has been several times of late years killed 

 in Ireland and England ; one was shot two years since in Wensley- 

 dale, Yorkshire, and another in the Bishop of Winchester's park at 

 Farnham, last summer. The eagle owl was shot in the last week of 

 the old year, at Weston-on-the-Green, nine miles from Oxford, — a 

 singular instance of its occurrence so far South. 



" My brother shot a water- rail the last day of the year, and we 

 made a skin of it, as it is not a very common bird hereabouts : it was 

 prodigiously fat. I am afraid we shall not get many of the rare water 

 birds this winter, as it seems to be set in for an open season ; but you 

 on the sea-coast have a better chance for such windfalls than I have 

 in my inland situation. 



" I should have mentioned above, in speaking of the Noctule bat, 

 that the length as there given is exclusive of the tail, which is an inch 

 and a half more. I myself think that White's description comes 

 nearer to V. serotinus, but Fleming and Sir W. Jardine refer it to V. 

 Noctula, the synonyms of which have been much confounded with 

 those of V. serotinus. In the Catalogue of the Zoological Society's 

 Museum, in Bruton Street, I see a species of bat mentioned as British 

 by the name Plecotus brevimanus, Jenyns (short-armed long-eared 

 bat), but I do not remember the specimen, nor in what it differs from 

 the common long-eared bat (P. auritus). As you seem to have 

 studied the bats, can you tell me whether you ever observed any dif- 

 ference ? Fleming says that the V. Noctula (or altivolans of White) 

 winters in Italy : can you tell me the time of its migration, as you 

 say it is not uncommon with you ? 



"As a proof how much birds are influenced in their habitat by tem- 

 perature, I give you a list of European birds found in the Indian 

 provinces at the foot of the Himalaya, where the average climate is 

 much as in England : the list is partly from the notes of the Hon. F. 

 J. Shore, partly from specimens in the Liverpool Museum, collectec 

 in India by Mr. Everest: those which may be slight varieties of the 

 European species are marked with a query : — Falco subbuteo ; F. tin- 

 nunculus ; F. nisus ; F. ater (the black kite of Germany) ; F. rums 

 (moor buzzard) ; F. cyancus (hen harrier) ; Strix flammea ; S. brachy- 



