414 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



wonderfully mild season twenty-three species of garden plants 

 are in bloom. Chaffinch sang a little, 



16th. — Blackbird singing. 



20th. — Several apricot blossoms expanded, the earliest I 

 ever saw. A lesser celandine flower, and hawthorn leaves three- 

 quarters of an inch long in a spinney at the mouth of this 

 brook. Marks of an Otter's presence. 



27th. — Violent storm early, with rain and hail, and blew very 

 hard in the forenoon. This was our share of the great gale 

 which overturned tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of 

 trees in the west and Ireland. Here the damage done was 

 slight. 



The first half of this month was dry and warm. Eain fell on 

 only eight days to the amount of 1.15 in. The old saying that 

 all the months of the year curse a fine February proved a very 

 true one this year. 



March 1st. — Violent storm. Bullfinches eating gooseberry- 

 buds, and to-day attacked those of the black currant, on which 

 there are leaves large enough to cover a sixpence. By the next 

 day they had nearly ruined these bushes, and I shot a male with 

 his crop crammed with the fruit-buds. They rarely attack these 

 buds. The pears are too far advanced to be harmed, most of the 

 buds having opened. 



3rd. — Grey Wagtail in the brook. 



5th. — Starling investigating a nesting-hole. 



6th. — Some Bramblings with other small birds on a field of 

 backward young wheat near Wroxton. 



10th. — Song-Thrush building in plum on wall again, and 

 again using old horseradish leaf- stems (vide ' Zoologist,' 1904, 

 p?363). 



13th. — Hedges quite green in places. 



22nd. — Several plum trees in bloom. While watching about 

 a score of bright fresh-looking Meadow-Pipits (migrants) on a 

 hilly grass-field dotted with large ant-hills at Milcomb, I turned 

 the glass on an Alpine or Water- Pipit {Anthus spinoletta). It 

 was rather buff than pink underneath, and slightly marked on 

 the breast ; eye-stripe conspicuous ; grey of the back not very 

 pure. As, when it flew, it did not show pure white in the tail, 

 it would be what some people call the Scandinavian form of the 



