246 Birds. 



During the heat of the day many of them disperse up and down 

 throughout the corn, pasture, or fallow fields, in search of food. — 

 These they beat with great diligence, traversing them again and again 

 at the height of about ten feet, as before. When any suitable object 

 meets their eye, they immediately round to, alight on the ground, and, 

 generally keeping their wdngs extended upwards, at an acute angle 

 with their bodies, seize it. 



The black-headed gull is a lively, graceful bird, and has, like its 

 congeners, a very elegant and buoyant mode of flight. A peculiarity 

 in its habits, which I have not seen noticed, is, that it is very crepus- 

 cular, I have repeatedly seen numbers of them flying about long af- 

 ter sun-set ; and lately I have remarked that they come abroad in the 

 evening, apparently for the purpose of catching insects, which they do 

 on the wing, after the manner of the swallow tribe. On the 22nd of 

 this month, I watched the proceedings of a number of these birds by 

 the banks of the Jed, between 9 and 10 o'clock. There was a small 

 grove of trees at a short distance from the river, to which some of them 

 resorted, flying from one extremity to the other, and returning again, 

 all the while seemingly engaged in the pursuit of insects of some kind. 

 Their motions were much the same as those of swallows, although 

 somew^hat slower ; they sometimes remained hovering and suspended 

 while catching an insect, so long and so near the trees that I thought 

 they w^ere going to alight. Others of them scoured the fields and the 

 water-side, and others again followed the course of the river, but all 

 apparently intent on the capture of some winged prey. It was very 

 curious to observe these gulls hawking about exactly like the Hirun- 

 dines. In Yarrell's * British Birds ' it is mentioned that the Rev. Mr. 

 Lubbock had seen the brown-headed gull engaged in catching cock- 

 chafers ; whether the insects in this case were cockchafers, I am una- 

 ble to say. Archibald Jerdon. 

 Boujedward, June, 1843. 



Note on the late departure of the Fieldfare. I saw a solitary fieldfare {Turdus pila- 

 ris) here as late as May 19. On the 10th, in the evening, I had seen a large flock, 

 which descended from some height in the air to roost in some trees in a neighbouring 

 park. — /. C. Atkinson ; Berwick-on-Tweed^ June, 1843. 



Note on the Nests of Martins on Sand-stone Rocks. Many nests of martins {Hirun- 

 do urhica) are built on some of the precipitous rocks of sand-stone, which, in various 

 places, over-hang the river White-adder, flowing through Berwickshire into the Tweed. 

 They are placed wherever a projecting ledge gives them shelter from above. In one 

 place, hist autumn, I counted from thirty to thirty-live, at a height of perhaps forty- 



