Birds. 5751 



Occurrence of the Kile (Falco milvus) near Banff. — A most splendid male speci- 

 men of this rare bird was shot, a short time ago, at a place called Eden, the seat of 

 G. E. Grant Duff, Esq., about four miles from here. The bird is truly a noble one, 

 being in first-rate plumage, in fact as fine a one as the longing, not to say covetous, 

 eye of any ornithologist ever rested on, although I myself, to tell the truth, envied the 

 animal as soon as I saw it. I may add that, through the kindness of Mr. Duff, who 

 has ever proved my friend in that way, it now adorns my collection, having been most 

 generously presented to me by that gentleman. — Thomas Edward; Old Market 

 Place, Banff, June 2, 1857. 



Hawfinches breeding in Suffolk. — Having communicated (Zool. 4946) what I be- 

 lieve to have been the first recorded instance of the hawfinch breeding in Norfolk, it 

 may not be uninteresting to add the following notices of its doing so, not once, but 

 often, in the adjoining county of Suffolk. In the ' Bury Post' of last week a para- 

 graph sent by an ornithological friend, appeared as follows : — " A nest of the hawfinch 

 has been taken in Ickworth Park containing five young ones." This statement, as 

 " a curious fact,'' elicited, the next week, some further information from another cor- 

 respondent, who says : — " Some twenty-four or twenty-five years since, I saw, in the 

 garden of Great Finborough Hall, a nest of young ones ; and they had reared some 

 in the same garden at least one year preceding. In the following June, Mr. Nicholls 

 (the theu gardener, and a most enthusiastic naturalist) wrote to invite me to pay him 

 a visit; and in his note he says, ' We have two nests of the hawfinch in the kitchen- 

 garden at this time, and one is on the same tree you saw them on last year.' It is but a 

 few days since that I saw a nest full of young ones in a garden in the neighbourhood 

 of Bury. It is perhaps rather singular that in all cases the birds selected apple trees 

 as their place of abode. In addition to these, we may add that last year a nest of 

 young were reared in the pleasure-grounds of either Ampton or Livermere, at the mo- 

 ment I forget which, but I believe the former place.'' From these and other instances 

 that have of late years been recorded of hawfinches nesting in this country, there can 

 be no doubt that they do so regularly and in some numbers, although, until their 

 habits and resorts were better known, their excessive shyness and rapid movements 

 left ample room for doubt.—/?. Stevenson ; Norwich, June 18, 1857. 



Inquiry respecting the Plumage of the Common Dipper. — Can any of your north- 

 country correspondents, acquainted with the haunts of the water ouzel, inform me if 

 the chestnut-colour on the breast of some specimens is merely the summer plumage of 

 the species, or the plumage assumed permanently by the adult birds ? Two years 

 since, I received a pair of these birds, shot during the summer in Scotland, which had 

 the lower part of the breast bright chestnut, shading off into gray towards the vent; 

 but out of four specimens killed in this county in autumn, even as late as November, 

 when the few stragglers that visit Norfolk are chiefly met with, I have found none ex- 

 hibiting the slightest trace of chestnut, but, instead, the same parts are invariably 

 grayish black. Mr. Yarrell, I find, speaks of no difference in the summer and winter 

 plumage, and states that males and females are alike in plumage ; I therefore want to 

 ascertain if the birds that visit us are not in immature plumage, which might assume 

 the chestnut tints in the following spring. The young bird in its first plumage dif- 

 fers from either of the specimens alluded to. — Id. 



Note on the Migration of the Swallow Tribe. — It is, I think, quite impossible that 

 the vast flights of swallows that in their migration pass annually to the eastward can 

 either have been bred in or belonged to this or the neighbouring counties ; it is far 



