NOTES AND QUERIES. 455 



We watched a solitary Brent Goose, which we were told had been about 

 for several weeks. Large flocks of Peewits were moving all day over the 

 salt-marshes, occasionally settling on a scrub-covered island at the river- 

 mouth. On the 29th the wind was still in the N.E., ard I shot a Little 

 Stint, Tringa minuta, in the salt-marshes between the " Saltpans" and the 

 sea. The Dunlins were rapidly assuming the winter dress; one which we 

 shot had the black breast flecked all over with white feathers, giving it a 

 very singular appearance. A few Yellow Wagtails still remained, and we 

 saw one Wheatear, Saocicola cenanthe On Oct. 1st a carter told me that he 

 had seen eight "Grey Geese" as he drove along the bay. We saw one 

 Yellow Wagtail only, the last seen whilst we were there. On Oct. 2nd the 

 wind was blowing strong from the east, and there were a large number of 

 Wigeon about. We shot one which was sheltering under a dyke. In the 

 course of the morning we went inland over the marshes, which are here 

 studded with tall thorn-bushes. Seeing a black and white bird fly from the 

 ground into a thorn-bush, I followed it up, and found that it was a Great 

 Grey Shrike. True to its name " excubitor," it was too wary to let me get 

 within shot, and would fly from one bush to another, pausing at times and 

 hovering in mid-air like a Kestrel. After I had followed it from tree to 

 tree for a quarter of an hour it flew across the Stour, and as there was no 

 means of crossing the river I gave up the pursuit. On Oct. 4th I visited 

 Mr. Sturges, the Margate taxidermist, who showed me a Grey Shrike from 

 Margate, several Black Redstarts, Shore Larks, and Ring Ouzels from the 

 district, a Spotted Crake from the Minster marshes, and an Osprey, shot 

 at North Down, Thanet, on July 1st, in spite of the provisions of the Wild 

 Birds Protection Act. — Sutton A. Davies (Pembroke College, Oxford). 



Escape of a Caged Eagle. — With reference to the remarks which have 

 appeared on this subject (pp. 380, 434), Mr. H. S. Davenport writes to the 

 effect that he had no reason to suppose that the Eagle seen in his neigh- 

 bourhood and subsequently shot at Easton was a tame one ; and he adds, 

 that as the Eagle which escaped from the Bristol Zoological Gardens 

 (p. 380), was supposed by the keeper to be & female, while the one killed at 

 Easton was ascertained by dissection to be a male, he feels justified in 

 rejecting the suggestion (p. 434) that they were one and the same bird. 



American Yellow-billed Cuckoo: Important Correction. — The 

 species of bird which, to the number of ten or fifteen, came on board the 

 s.8. ' Ottoman,' when off Cape Race, on the voyage from Boston to Liver- 

 pool (p. 433), and which was thought by Mr. Neilson to be " probably 

 identical" with the American Cuckoo that was picked up dead a few days 

 later in Dorsetshire (p. 376) has been at length identified. Mr. Neilson 

 has to-day (Dec. 10th) kindly sent me the sole survivor of those that were 

 caught, and it proves to be a female Snow Bunting, Emberiza nivalis. — 

 J. E. Harting. 



