10 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and a half at Milcomb and South Newington were young Red- 

 legs. 



14th. — News from Mr. Fowler of Hobbies haunting a great 

 roost of Swallows at Kingham (vide Zool. 1899, p. 476). 



15th. — Swallows and Martins congregating on the roof of 

 this house this morning; being of rough " stonesfield slate," 

 facing east and standing high, this roof is a favourite gathering- 

 place. 



22nd. — A great congregation of Swallows and Martins on the 

 roof until after 8 a.m. When they flew up they were like a 

 swarm of bees. They returned to the roof two or three times. 

 This has been going on for some days. Mr. Bartlett showed me 

 two Eared Grebes (Podicipes nigricollis) over the moult, or nearly 

 so, which were shot on a pond about three miles north-west of 

 Banbury on the 19th inst. I afterwards bought them. They 

 were proved by dissection to be a male and female, and are 

 probably a pair of adult birds which had bred, or attempted to 

 breed, in the neighbourhood. Although their irides were bright 

 yellow, not red, I do not think they were birds of the previous 

 year which had passed the summer with us without breeding, as 

 is, I believe, the case with Grebes in the first season after that 

 in which they are hatched ; because the eyes of Grebes vary a 

 good deal (perhaps according to the season), and because the 

 male still exhibits some rufous colour on the sides of the head. 

 This colour is not shown by birds in the spring following that in 

 which they are hatched, and is certainly not assumed in autumn. 

 The birds had not been seen on the pond on which they were 

 shot before the morning they were killed, but there are several 

 large reservoirs in the neighbourhood — one of them not more 

 than four or five miles away — which would have afforded them a 

 congenial summer home. Three days after they were killed 

 their bills were blackish, and their legs blackish olive, or blackish 

 with a strong tinge of green. Upper parts of the body nearly as 

 dark as the summer dress. Throat white, the white extending 

 nearly to the nape in the female. In the male the sides of the 

 head tinged with rufous. Fore-neck intermediate between sum- 

 mer and winter plumage. Breast greyish. Mr. T. A. Coward 

 kindly sent for my inspection a male shot in Anglesey on the 

 1st August, 1892 (Zool. 1892, p. 358). I think it was hatched in 



