NOTES FROM OXFORDSHIRE. 95 



apple-orchard at Little Barford. To return to Green Wood- 

 peckers, I may state that on the same day that I found the pair 

 nesting we saw, in the afternoon, one bird, and heard others in 

 the distance ; this was while merely walking across the few fields 

 which divide the villages. 25th. — Mr. F. C. Aplin saw, not far 

 from Balscote (at the point where the lane from Shutford cuts 

 into the Stratford road), a pair of birds which could only have 

 been Wood Larks. Described as being smaller than Sky Larks, 

 very short and "dumpy" in shape, and having a remarkably 

 large crest, and the brown plumage distinctly marked on the 

 shoulders and sides of body with narrow whitish marks. They 

 were on a low flat-topped wall bordering a line of plantation. 



June 18th. — I went to Kingham, to see the Marsh Warblers 

 which Mr. Fowler has already written upon (Zool. 1892, p. 303), 

 and on this and the following day heard and saw a good deal of 

 them. Sedge Warblers and one Reed Warbler also inhabited the 

 osier-bed, and I may add now that in 1893 (the osiers having been 

 cut in the spring) Mr. Fowler found one or two pairs of Grass- 

 hopper Warblers in possession ; the osier-bed has therefore held 

 four species of River or Swamp Warblers. 19th. — In Bruern 

 Wood we heard a Nightingale in good song between 12 and 1 p.m. 

 Garden Warblers common and especially noticeable. Observed 

 Wood Wren in the oaks, and others in Churchill Heath Wood. 

 30th. — Examined a young Hawfinch caught this month before it 

 could fly, in a garden at Neithrop, Banbury. I afterwards saw a 

 young bird in the flesh, shot at the Elms, Banbury, on July 26th, 

 where others, old and young, had been seen. 



July 14th. — Mr. Darbey, of Oxford, assured me he had cased 

 up the nest and eggs of a Marsh Warbler, taken from a laurel- 

 bush at Wolvercote this summer. Mr. Darbey knows the nest 

 .and eggs of the Reed Warbler well ; these eggs had larger and 

 more distinct blotches. I have not yet been able to examine the 

 specimens. 15th. — Observed a female Red-backed Shrike close 

 to their old haunt near the brickyard on the road from Broughton 

 to Banbury ; it had just impaled a yellow-banded bumble-bee ; 

 indeed the Shrike was in the act when I caught sight of her. 

 30th. — Saw a pair of Red-backed Shrikes, with young on the 

 wing, in a small close with tall hedges just outside the village. 

 They were still there two days later, and it is curious that the 

 old birds escaped notice before ; but, until the hay-grass is cut, 



