Notes and queries. 103 



December. In North Devon Woodcocks were also pleutiful. One market- 

 day upwards of a hundred were offered for sale at Barnstaple, brought in 

 by the farmers' wives. In this district most of the hedgehogs have 

 perished; I have found their remains in nearly every field. — Murray A. 

 Mathew (Buckland Dinham, Frome). 



Lines of Migration. — In his interesting " Notes on the Ornithology 

 of Northamptonshire " (p. 52) Lord Lilford says, " I am of opinion that 

 the valley of the Nene, from the Wash as far as Thrapston, is certainly a 

 much-used line of migration ; but I believe that the majority of our 

 autumnal migrants leave the valley somewhere above that town, and strike 

 across the country for the eastern affluents of the Severn." There can, I 

 think, be no doubt that Lord Lilford is perfectly correct in this opinion, 

 founded as it is on long and careful observation, and in corroboration I 

 quote the following extract taken from the Migration Report (1886), East 

 Coast of England : — " The returns from the north of Norfolk are poor, 

 but there are indications in the heavy returns annually sent from the Llyu- 

 wells, Dudgeon, Leman and Ower, and Happisburgh light-vessels, that a 

 closely-focussed stream pours along the coast from east to west, to pass 

 inland by the estuary of the Wash and the river systems of the Nene and 

 Welland into the centre of England, thence probably following the line of 

 the Avon, the north coast of the Severn and Bristol Channel, and 

 eventually striking across the Irish Sea to enter Ireland by the Tuskar 

 Rock off the Wexford coast. This route is undoubtedly the great and main 

 thoroughfare for birds in transit across England to Ireland in the autumn." 

 — John Cordeaux (Great Cotes, Ulceby). 



The Recent Visitation of Bustards. — The visits of the Great Bustard, 

 Otis tarda, to England are now-a-days so few and far between, the species 

 having long since ceased to reside and breed in this country, that any facts 

 concerning its appearance deserve to be placed on record. The Bustard, 

 like the Bittern, has now come to be regarded as a winter visitor, though 

 why, it is not easy to explain ; for one would rather expect that, like other 

 species which were formerly more abundant in the breeding-season (the 

 Dotterel and the Stone Curlew, or Thick-knee, for example), they would 

 make some attempt to revisit their old nesting-haunts in the spring of 

 the year, especially since they are not, as are many wild-fowl, natives 

 of more northern countries, driven southwards by snow and ice with 

 the advent of winter. The fact, however, remains, that both Bustards 

 and Bitterns are now to be looked for duriug the winter months, though 

 with this difference, — that while the latter may be regarded as annual 

 visitors, in some years more numerous than in others, with the 

 former the case is far different. I have notes of more than fifty Bit- 

 terns shot, alas ! in different parts of the country during the present 



