1.06 tfHE ZOOLOGIST. 



If no mistake was made in regard to the species, the middle of May is 

 now-a-days a remarkable date at which to meet with a Bustard in 

 England. It is to be hoped that, should any more of these fine birds be 

 still roaming about the country, they may be allowed to go unharmed. It 

 should be remembered that the Bustard is a game bird, still protected by 

 existing game laws (1 & 2 Will. IV. cap. 32) between the 1st March and 

 the 1st September ; and any person killing one between those dates renders 

 himself liable to prosecution and fine, besides having to pay costs. — 

 J. E. Harting. 



Blackcap in Wiltshire in Mid- winter.— By the same post which 

 brought my copy of the February No. of • The Zoologist,' containing an 

 account of the remarkable appearance of the Blackcap on several occasions 

 during the late inclement weather, came a small box wherein lay a dead 

 Blackcap, a male in good plumage, which was forwarded to me for identifi- 

 cation, — it having fonnd its way, on February 1st, into a bedroom at the 

 Rectory, Clyffe Pypard, in this county, and there breathed its last. How 

 the poor bird survived during the extraordinarily severe weather we have 

 lately experienced, whence it came, and what drove it to undertake so fatal 

 a journey, we cannot tell. Perhaps, as unprecedented cold and snow have 

 appeared this winter in Algeria, the astonished bird may have intended to 

 move farther south, but, mistaking its course, reached the downs of Wilt- 

 shire, the temperature of which during the last two months has been 

 somewhat different from that of the Sahara. But be that as it may, its 

 occurrence here in mid-winter seems worth noting. — Alfred Charles Smith 

 (Old Park, Devizes). 



Great Flight of Small Birds to the Westward.— Apropos of this 

 subject, on which some interesting details are giveu pp. 63 — 66, the 

 following notes were written down from the narration of Mr. W. W. Lloyd, 

 and approved by him : — " At Castle Townsend, on the south coast of Co. 

 Cork, there w 7 as a heavy snowstorm, accompanied by a strong easterly wind, 

 all day, on Dec. 31st, 1890. The snowstorm was sufficiently heavy to 

 prevent two American liners from putting into Queenstown. They had to 

 make for Liverpool direct. During the whole of that day a continuous 

 stream of birds — chiefly Starlings, with Fieldfares, Finches, and other 

 small birds — kept passing westwards across the harbour, and surging up 

 over the hill at Castletownsend amidst the blinding snow. Mr. Lloyd saw 

 a Snipe or two among them. Whenever the snow cleared a little he saw 

 packs of Lapwings at a much greater height, all passing westwards, but 

 sometimes turning aud facing the storm, and then, as it were, swept away 

 by it agaiu. The same day he went up the harbour, when he observed a 

 number of Stonechats (probably driven in from the open country to the 

 east) in a half-famished state. He caught one which perched on his boat, 



