150 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



white in winter, while nearly all assume a much lighter shade of fur when 

 the cold weather sets in." This view is supported by the observations of 

 Mr. T. E. Davies in Co. Donegal, by Col. J. Whyte in Sligo, by the late Lord 

 Clermont in the counties of Armagh and Louth (Zool. 1882, p. 107), and by 

 other correspondents in other parts of Ireland. Mr. Harvie Brown has an 

 interesting and confirmatory note on this subject in his ' Vertebrate Fauna 

 of Argyll,' p. 43, footnote.— Ed.] 



Yellow-tailed Squirrels. — In my note under this heading in the last 

 number of* The Zoologist' (p. 103), by a slip of the pen, " November" was 

 given as the date when the new blackish hairs grow up and supersede 

 the bleached white ones of the summer pelage. This should have been 

 " September," by the middle of which month the majority of specimens 

 have grown their winter tail hairs and dropped their summer ones. — 

 Old field Thomas (Natural History Museum, South Kensington). 



BIRDS. 



The Ruff in Sussex in Winter. — The appearance of a Huff, Machetes 

 pugnax, in Chichester Harbour during the first week of February last, 

 seems to me sufficiently unusual to deserve mention. As a rule, this bird 

 is a spring and autumn migrant in Sussex, appearing in the tidal harbours 

 and estuaries about the end of April and beginning of May (when Knots, 

 Whimbrel, and Grey Plover also arrive), but passing on northwards in 

 about a week or ten days, not to reappear until the autumn, when, on the 

 return journey south, they once more appear in larger flocks, no doubt 

 because young and old are then associated. Years ago (in the sixties and 

 seventies), before Pagham Harbour, that paradise for wildfowl and waders, 

 was reclaimed, I was often quartered on that part of the coast for a week or 

 two at a time in spring and autumn, taking note of all the birds that made 

 a temporary stay there, as well as in the harbours of Bosham and Chichester. 

 Lying out in a gunning-punt all day, walking round the harbour under the 

 sea-wall, exploring the marshes between Sidlesham and Selsea, or tramping 

 along the great pebble beach between Selsea Bill and the coast-guard station 

 at Pagham, I became in this way familiar with all the ordinary wading and 

 swimming birds, and some of the rarer ones too, learning to distinguish them 

 by their notes, flight, and actions at a distance, stalking and shooting those 

 about which any uncertainty existed, or by imitating their calls from an 

 ambush, luring them round within shot, and securing those I wanted. In 

 this way I got to know a good deal about the movements of the migratory 

 species, the dates of their arrival and departure, and their relative abundance 

 or scarcity. The Ruff I never found to be a common bird in Sussex, that 

 is, by comparison with the Knot, Redshank, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew 

 Sandpiper, Curlew, Whimbrel, and Grey Plover, which often appeared in 

 great flocks at the period of their migration, together with Ringed Plovers 



