NOTES AND QUERIES. 147 



me by letter. He particularly noted the circumstance, for previously to 

 seeing it he had been informed that the Bullfinch was extinct in the island. 

 Mr. Ralfe does not mention the Kingfisher, which is occasionally seen on 

 the island burns, nor the Twite, of which specimens obtained in June were 

 sent from the Isle of Man by Mr. J. F. Crellin to Mr. A. G. More, as 

 mentioned by him in ' The Ibis,' 1865, p. 130. The Golden Plover I have 

 seen near Castletown quite early in August, in which month also the 

 Wheatear is often exceedingly abundant along that part of the coast. In 

 August, 1880, I saw the old racecourse and the sward of Langness literally 

 swarming with Wheatears. On the same occasion some Wild Ducks 

 (a species not mentioned by Mr. Ralfe) were seen by me on the Silverburn ; 

 so tame, that I mistook them for the domesticated variety until they 

 surprised me by taking flight. On the 12th September, 1891, I saw 

 hundreds of Pied Wagtails (in immature plumage) haunting the margin of 

 Castletown Bay ; I had seen no such hosts of them in Ireland since 1874. 

 Among other common birds not mentioned by Mr. Ralfe, I may remark 

 that the Golden-crested Wren thrives in sheltered localities ; the Common 

 Wren, though somewhat inhospitably scheduled as " Partially Destructive" 

 in the insular Wild Birds Protection Act, still holds its own ; the Starling 

 has, I think, greatly increased of late years ; and the Whitethroat, Willow 

 Wren, Cuckoo, and Corncrake are well-known regular summer visitors. — 

 C. B. Moffat. 



Rough-legged Buzzard in Hants.— On Nov. 17th, 1891, Mr. Fisher 

 saw a large hawk about three and a half miles from Winchester, and on the 

 14th February last he and I saw a large hawk near the same place, which 

 we took to be a Buzzard. It was circling over a rabbit-warren, in quest, I 

 suppose, of rabbits. The place is very bare and flinty, a grey lichen and 

 little groups of stunted elder trees being the only vegetation. On March 

 13th we were walking over the warren, when we saw a large hawk flapping 

 its wings on the ground under an elder tree. It proved to be a Rough- 

 legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus), caught by the left leg in a large gin 

 baited with a rabbit ; its claw hung by a piece of skin only, the leg having 

 been broken clean below the so-called knee-joint, and the poor bird must 

 have been in the trap for over 24 hours. Setting aside the cruelty of 

 trapping these birds, surely it is unmerciful to leave them so long in the 

 gin. As it was Sunday, it would probably have remained in for another 

 twelve hours till Monday morning. We bandaged up the wounded leg, 

 and are keeping the bird in hopes of its recovery. The measurements are 

 -across the wings, 48 in.; total length, 21 in. ; from which somewhat 

 small dimensions, compared with those given in ' Yarrell,' I should infer 

 that it is a young male. This is the first occurrence, I believe, of this 

 species observed near Winchester, though one was seen round Stockbridge 

 m February last.— Sun on A. Davies (Winchester). 



