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NOTES FKOM THE AVON VALLEY, HAMPSHIEE 



(1912). 



By G. B. Corbin. 



A record for the past twelve months may almost be summed 

 up in the word " rain." A rich and bountiful harvest, damaged, 

 and in some instances almost destroyed, by wet and unfavour- 

 able weather at the time of ingathering, followed by such mild 

 open weather that primroses were gathered at Christmas, and 

 in the early days of the New Year gipsies were hawking daffodils 

 in the street quite six weeks earlier than usual ! Thus the 

 seasons seemed upside down, the wildfowl shooting proving 

 almost a complete failure from the flooded condition of the 

 river ; only one " shoot " was possible (when about one hundred 

 head were killed), whereas some six or seven meetings in the 

 same period of time usually took place. Consequently the birds 

 had a comparatively quiet and peaceful time, and my few 

 rambling notes are not so bloodstained. 



At the opening of the shooting season Snipe were plentiful, 

 and later the handsome little migrant " Jack " was far from 

 rare ; but Woodcock were few and far between, although their 

 nesting in the neighbourhood has long been known. The spring 

 of 1912 having been favourable for the nesting of the Ducks, 

 Moorhens, &c, a goodly number of home-bred birds were on the 

 flooded river when the shooting season commenced, and were 

 later augmented by visitors from the north, but not a rarity 

 was seen. Wigeon were very early in appearing, the peculiar 

 characteristic "whistle" of the species said to have been 

 heard more than once at the end of August ; certainly there was 

 no mistaking the notes early in September, and a friend of mine 

 shot a bird at the end of the month. Eventually Wigeon were 

 seen in unusually large flocks, and so continued throughout the 

 winter, and, although circumstances prevented their being dis- 

 turbed or worried, they ever seemed wary and on the alert. 

 Perhaps the same remarks may apply to the sometimes large 



