42 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the aviary. We left home for Bournemouth on Oct. 29th; so 

 that my following records till May, 1890, are taken from letters 

 received from various correspondents in Northamptonshire. 



November. 

 1st. An immature male Buffon's Skua was picked up alive, 

 but with one thigh broken, close to the L. & N.W. Railway, not far 

 from Thorpe Station. My cousin, the Rev. William Powys, who 

 met the finder of the bird a few minutes after the capture, was of 

 opinion that the injury had been caused by shot, but he bought, 

 killed, and forwarded the specimen to me at Bournemouth, where 

 I received it on the 4th inst., and I have no doubt that the fracture 

 was occasioned by the bird flying against the telegraph-wires. This 

 is, so far as I know, the second recorded instance of the occurrence 

 of this species in our county. 



5th. Three House Martins flying about Lilford. — R. C. 



11th. A Great Grey Shrike visited our sentinel of the same 

 species at the hawk-hut at Pilton, took a slight refection from 

 his food, and remained for about an hour in the immediate 

 vicinity. — R. C. 



12th. A pair of Gadwalls, taken this morning, were brought 

 to Lilford from the decoy, pinioned, and put upon the park- 

 pond. — R. C. 



J 9th. Large numbers of Sky Larks passing over daily. A pair 

 of Common (?) Sandpipers are constantly about the river-side 

 near the hawk-hut. — R. C. I place a mark of interrogation after 

 the word " Common," as, though my informant is well acquainted 

 with Totanus hypoleucus (a bird that is never abundant about 

 Lilford), that species has not hitherto been met with, or heard 

 of, by me later than the end of September in our neighbourhood. 

 I suspected that these two birds were either Green Sandpipers 

 or Dunlins ; but, on questioning my informant closely, I found 

 that he was quite positive as to correct identification. I can only 

 attribute this late stay of the Sandpipers to the extraordinary 

 mildness of the season. On the day last mentioned our head- 

 gardener wrote : — " The weather is so warm here that the 

 Sparrows have built a nest on the pear tree at the end of my 

 cottage." 



20th. Mr. W. Tomalin, of Northampton, informed me that 

 on this day a Hoopoe was murdered in a rick-yard near Yardley- 



