296 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



month Mr. Chalkley received a Pied Woodpecker, D. major, from 

 Abbot's Barton, Winchester, and a Barred Woodpecker, D. minor, 

 from Ampfield, Komsey. 



February. 

 A very wet month. On the 5th a male Common Buzzard, 

 Buteo vulgaris, measuring 3 ft. 9j in. across the wings, and 

 weighing 1 lb. 15 oz., was shot at Easton, near Winchester; the 

 stomach, which I examined, contained the remains of several 

 mice, and nothing else. About the middle of the month the Pied 

 Wagtails, Motacilla lugubris, which had left us almost entirely 

 during December and January, began to make their appearance 

 in small parties of six or seven. On the 19th I observed the first 

 twig-bearing Rooks, and on this and the two following days we 

 were visited by immense numbers of Peewits on migration. These 

 birds would suddenly stream down into the water-meadows like 

 a shower of leaves, and seemingly coming from nowhere, for no 

 flocks were visible in the sky. All the while they kept up a 

 low confused chattering like the chorus of roosting Starlings. 

 The 25th was the first date upon which I noticed any signs of 

 the coming brown hood in the " Black "-headed Gulls, Larus 

 ridibundus. Grey Wagtails, M. melanope, were commoner with, 

 us in the winter of 1892-93 than I had ever known them before, 

 and the same thing was noticed at Andover. Last winter, how- 

 ever (Dec. 1893), they were still more numerous. 



March. 

 With March began the phenomenally fine weather which 

 lasted so long in 1893. On the 2nd a Rook's nest was begun 

 in the Warden's Garden at Winchester College, a place where 

 I have never known them nest before ; it was followed by a second 

 nest on the 4th, but I regret to say that the birds were shot at 

 and prevented from building. A rookery of eight nests was 

 established this year in "New Field" at Winchester College. 

 On the 11th I saw what was almost certainly a Dipper, Cinclus 

 aquaticus, on the river ; as two have been shot in Hants within 

 a year, it is not unlikely to have been one. On the 5th we found 

 a Thrush's nest in course of completion, which contained three 

 eggs on the 17th; and on the 16th Mr. R. C. K. Ensor found 

 three nests of this species, each with four eggs. A Herring Gull, 





