. 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol. XVI.] JUNE, 1892. [No. J 86. 



NOTES on THE ORNITHOLOGY of NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



FOE 1891. 



By the Rt. Hon. Lord Lilford, F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



January. 



1st. An adult female Scaup was picked up alive under the 

 telegraph-wires near Thorpe Station, and brought to me. I could 

 not detect any wound or outward injury, but the bird was so much 

 exhausted, and so reduced in flesh, that I thought it better to kill 

 it than to have it pinioned and put upon our fowl-pond. I also 

 received a very fine male Kestrel alive from a tenant farmer at 

 Slipton, with the information that it had been caught in his 

 granary, to which it could only have attained access by the " cat- 

 hole" in the door. 



6th. I received a letter from Mr. Rowland Ward, informing 

 me that on Dec. 24th, 1890, he had received, for preservation, a 

 Bittern from Mr. T. W. Thornton, of Brockhall, near Weedon. 

 I subsequently heard from Mr. Thornton, in reply to my request 

 for details, that this bird was shot from some sedges at the side 

 of a pond in front of the house at the place above mentioned on 

 Dec. 13th ult. The Rev. Frederick M. Stopford informed me that, 

 two or three days before, he had seen a Great Titmouse dragging 

 about a half-dead Redbreast in a fence by the roadside near 

 Thrapston. This is by no means the first instance that has come 

 to my knowledge of the murderous propensities of Parus major 

 in severe weather. 



ZOOLOGIST. JUNE, 1892. K 



