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ROUGH NOTES ON DERBYSHIRE ORNITHOLOGY, 



1903-1904. 



By the Rev. Francis C. R. Jourdain, M.A., M.B.O.U. 



(Continued from ' The Zoologist,' 1904, p. 107.) 



1903. — Addenda. — A Spotted Crake was sent to A. S. Hutch- 

 inson, which had been killed near Derby, on Oct. 27th. A Hare 

 with a white stripe across the loins was killed near Mansfield on 

 Dec. 7th, and three white Stoats were also sent in about the 

 same time. During the mild but exceedingly wet winter of 

 1903-4, white Stoats were decidedly more common than usual. 

 The Meadow-Pipits and Pied Wagtails, which generally migrate 

 to the Trent Valley in the cold weather, remained in the Dove 

 Valley throughout the winter. On Dec. 31st, during a frost, I 

 noticed a family party of Goldcrests busily engaged in seeking 

 for food on the ground, where, owing to the presence of springs, 

 it was not frozen hard, — just the place where one might expect 

 to find a Snipe. During the quarter of an hour which I spent 

 in watching them, they showed no signs of leaving ; now 

 and then one would get up twittering and alight again a yard 

 or two away, but that was all. As a general rule, it is rare 

 to see this delicate little bird alight on the ground for more than 

 a second. 



A Virginian Colin sent in to A. F. Adsetts for preservation 

 from Matlock during the autumn. 



1904. 

 During the frosty weather of early January, we saw on three 

 occasions Moles trotting about on the surface of the ground, 

 apparently unable to burrow. I caught two of them, but found 

 it difficult to hold them without injuring them. The sensitive 

 nose was constantly twitching, and has a curious flattened, 

 chisel-shaped appearance in life. G. Pullen reports having 

 picked up a Jack Snipe at Egginton which had been killed by 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. IX., February, 1905. F 



