440 Birds. 



end. The largest egg is about 2 inches long by If inch in breadth, 

 and has the colouring, which has evidently lost somewhat of its bril- 

 liancy by incubation, pretty equally distributed over the whole sur- 

 face. In other respects it resembles the specimen figured by Mr. 

 Hewitson, and when newly laid must have been a splendid egg. 



It would be strange indeed if the only instances of the honey-buz- 

 zard having recently bred in this country should have fallen within 

 my very limited means of acquiring such information. I have there- 

 fore a strong impression that the dearth of recorded instances is attri- 

 butable rather to neglect to record than to want of instances. When 

 1 was at Tonbridge Wells some eight or ten years ago, I saw the 

 handsomest specimen I ever did see of this species, in the possession 

 of an amateur bird-stuffer of that place. He informed me that it was 

 killed in Lord Abergavenny's park in the neighbourhood, and that 

 within a few years preceding, several specimens had been obtained in 

 the same locality. The bird evidently has its favourite haunts, as ob- 

 served by Sir Wm. Jardine with respect to the district round Twizell 

 (I am again making use of Mr. Yarrell), and in these favourite haunts 

 it breeds, I suspect, more frequently than has been supposed. The 

 season at which it breeds, the trees being then in leaf, is favorable to 

 concealment, and may cause some nests to escape observation. I 

 shall however be disappointed if other instances do not flow in upon 

 you, when attention has been drawn to the subject. 



In order to make sure that Mr. Potts was not mistaken (not that I 

 suspected any mistake) in the first pair of birds sent by him to the 

 museum at Warwick, I wrote to Mr. Twamley, the Honorary Secre- 

 tary of the Society, and have received a reply from that gentleman, 

 fully confirming the accuracy of Mr. Potts' statement. 



J. P. WlLMOT. 

 Manchester, January 6, 1844. 



Note on dates of Migration at Redcar, near Guisborough. On the 16th of last May 

 I observed on our sea-banks a short-eared owl, two fieldfares and a cuckoo, the wind 

 adverse, being north-east. On the 25th I saw a short-eared owl commence his migra- 

 tion in a north-east direction, the wind being south-west. — T. S. Rudd; Redcar, near 

 Guisborough, Yorkshire, November 8, 1843. 



Notes on the departure of Summer Birds in the Count?/ of Derby, in 1843. ' The 

 Zoologist' has contained, from time to time, many accounts of the arrival of our mi- 

 gratory birds ih different parts of our island, but very few of their departure from it. 

 It must be acknowledged, that to ascertain the latter, is a much more difficult matter 

 than the former, inasmuch as most of our summer sylvan warblers commence their 



