Birds. 1297 



road. The 14th of May I heard the soft enchanting melody of the garden warbler. 

 The 18th of May I noticed about a dozen male whinchats in the Eltham road, appa- 

 rently resting on their journey northwards. Travelling from Ventnor to Culver-cliffs, 

 Isle of Wight, on the 23rd of June, I observed numbers of swifts darting along the 

 cliffs evidently on their passage, having crossed the channel, and made St. Catherine's 

 that morning. While at Culver-cliffs, looking through a glass at the fleet of men-of- 

 war at Spithead, manceuvreing before her Majesty, I noticed, high in the air, hundreds 

 ' of swifts crossing the Solent sea in large flocks. Was not this a very late arrival ? — 

 Matthew Hutchinson ; Blackheath. 



The Shrew and Grasshopper Warbler. In a note to Letter XVI. of White's Sel- 

 borne, Mr. Rennie doubts the propriety of the term " whisper," as applied to the trill- 

 ing notes of the grasshopper warbler. I have little doubt that White confounded the 

 sounds made by the shrew with those of the grasshopper warbler. As this little ani- 

 mal is running along the bottom of a hedge, its low sibilous notes may not inaptly be 

 called whispering. I am inclined to think that two shrews are in playful chace when 

 I hear them, but as I seldom catch a glimpse, or more than a glimpse, I am not at all 

 sure upon this point. The water-shrew makes similar sounds. I often hear a much 

 more vigorous sibilous cry, which I used to suppose was made by a field-cricket, and 

 many a time have I crept about on tip-toe in the hope of finding one sitting, all pro- 

 per, at the entrance of its burrow ; it is now some dozen years since I was undeceived 

 by a countryman, who assured me it was "only a sherrew whistling on the muck-heap." 

 Since this I have often heard similar notes from shrews in confinement, when they are 

 fighting, or alarmed ; if a worm is thrown to them they devour it with sibilous chat- 

 tering. Led by White, I also had supposed that the hedge-bottom notes were the 

 grasshopper warbler's, and I fancy I can remember being laughed at for saying so, as 

 White was. Since I have met with the real grasshopper warbler in the Cambridge- 

 shire fens, and elsewhere, I recognize its notes as perfectly distinct, nor has the bird 

 ever continued them till I approached so near as White seems to have done to the au- 

 thor of the whisperings. — John Wolley ; Beeston, near Nottingham, March 19, 1846. 



Song of the Fieldfare. My attention was on Sunday, the 25th instant, directed to 

 what I at first supposed to be the song of the blackbird, but observing something pe- 

 culiar in it, I stopped to listen, and on a nearer approach was not a little surprised to 

 find it proceeded from a fieldfare, which was so earnestly engaged in song as to allow 

 me to approach so very near, I being partially concealed, that I could not be mista- 

 ken as to its identity. The song of this bird, which is very rarely heard in this coun- 

 try, partakes of the melodious whistle of the blackbird, combined with the powerful 

 voice of the missel-thrush. This rare occurrence may be attributed to the unusual 

 mildness of the season, which has called many of the feathered tribe into full song, as 

 in spring. — Edward Murch ; Honiton, Devon, January 29, 1846. 



Swallows never seen at the Carron Iron-works in Winter. I observe in the Febru- 

 ary number of the * Zoologist ' (Zool. 1240) a paragraph entitled " Swallows at the 

 Carron Iron-works in Winter." I can assure you that this is not the case. I have 

 resided here for upwards of thirty years, and during that period I have never seen a 

 swallow from about the end of September or beginning of October, until the end of 

 April or beginning of May following. I may also remark that the temperature of Car- 

 ron is much the same as that of the surrounding country ; and in the time of frost the 

 ice on the pond is as thick and strong as the ice on any other pond or loch within ten 



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