ORNITHOLOGY OF OXFORDSHIRE. 827 



6th. — Lesser Whitethroat, as I was getting up, singing a low, 

 sweet, warbling song ; and again the next morning, close to the 

 window. 



8th. — Saw a Falcon. 



12th. — A fair Partridge season. Red-legs have done very 

 well, but are late, and have recovered from the wet summer and 

 winter of 1903. A few Meadow-Pipits, and a Cuckoo in dark grey 

 dress. Three Land-Rails, I hear, were shot on this glebe in a 

 bit of standing oats yesterday. 



16th. — There have been great congregations of Martins on the 

 roof all this month, but the first lot must have gone to-day, and 

 Swallows with them. 



19th. — Saw four or five Kestrels during the day ; one passing 

 high was mobbed by a small flock of Starlings. A dark grey 

 young Cuckoo seen ; and I may here mention that I saw one just 

 over the Northamptonshire borders as late as Oct. 17th. It was 

 mobbed by Rooks. 



21st. — Examined a female Peregrine Falcon — a bird of the 

 year — shot at Wardington yesterday while hanging round some 

 tame Pigeons at a farm. 



24th. — After to-day a further great diminution in the numbers 

 of Swallows and Martins. Wren singing. 



25th. — Many Goldfinches about the thistle-grown fields. 



27th. — Many Meadow-Pipits in the roots for the first time. 



28th. — Pipits going east, as usual. 



October 2nd.— Flock of two or three hundred Peewits passing 

 west, high up. 



oth. — Hedge- Sparrow singing. 



9th. — A few Swallows and Martins about the fields. 



14th. — Song-Thrush singing. 



25th. — Lots of Fieldfares and Redwings (arrived about the 

 middle of the month). Very few passing Pipits this season. All 

 the Thrush family in numbers about the hedges, but the flocks 

 of Mistle-Thrushes so remarkable at the end of summer and in 

 September are not seen now. Two Grey Crows (the first I heard 

 of this season, when they were far more abundant than in any 

 other year in my experience) were reported as seen on the Grove 

 estate about the middle of the month. 



A cold October. 



