92 THE ZOOLOGIS*. 



the remains of a Missel Thrush and a Wood Pigeon killed and 

 eaten by a hawk on the banks of the Swere ; this makes two of 

 the former and three of the latter which I have found there lately. 

 13th. — Very cold weather again. Saw some boys walk across 

 the ice on a pond. Peewits on the fallows for the first time. 

 16th. — Mild again. Blackbird singing. 19th. — Saw a Chiffchaff 

 catching gnats in a very sheltered spot. Afterwards had news 

 from Mr. Fowler that he saw one on the 18th on the sheltered 

 side of a wood at Kingham ; also that it was reported from 

 Oxford on the 20th. On the 23rd I saw two close together, 

 and on the 26th I noticed four along the parish brook within 

 a dozen yards of one another, while a fifth sang at a little 

 distance; this was the first I heard. In * The Field' of the 

 19th, Mr. J. G. Cornish, referring to a note in the previous 

 week's issue of a Thrush singing from the top of the Warden of 

 Keble's House, which used to sing on a pine in front of the 

 Museum, says that Oxford is the only town he knows in which 

 Blackbirds and Thrushes sing from the tops of houses. He 

 attributes it to the fact of the nesting sites being so close to the 

 houses ; the habit is not uncommon there. A Thrush, he said, 

 sang at that date from the roof of Hertford College, and Black- 

 birds not infrequently sang from gable ends of villas in the north 

 of Oxford. 25th. — Examined, at Mr. Wyatt's shop in Banbury, 

 a pair of Long-eared Owls, sent to him from Chipping Norton on 

 the 21st. The male was a very grey bird; the female warm 

 brown, and slightly larger. He said the eggs in the ovary were 

 quite small. 26th. — Saw two male Wheatears, and a pair, in the 

 arable fields north-east of the village. The former were very pure 

 grey, with distinct black head-marks. The buff underneath was 

 only developed on the throat and upper breast, and I think this 

 is generally so in our early, or small, spring birds. I saw a pair 

 on April 24th on a fallow; and on May 10th I observed a very 

 large Wheatear (male, grey on upper parts), doubtless one of the 

 large race of late migrants. It frequently settled, after being 

 disturbed, on the top of a fairly tall hedge, and never on the 

 ground, though the turf was very short. The Wheatear does not 

 breed here, save very exceptionally. At Kingham, in the afternoon 

 (March 26th), Mr. Fowler and I saw, in the Evenlode meadows, 

 a flock of Redwings containing, I should think, quite two or three 

 hundred birds ; they were very noisy. One apart in a tall hedge 



