ORNITHOLOGY OF OXFORDSHIRE. 331 



February 1st. — Larks singing. 



3rd. — News of five Grey Crows seen for some days early last 

 month above South Newington. 



5th. — A flock of about one thousand Wood-Pigeons on turnips 

 near Tadmarton Heath. A Fox sauntered right in among the 

 flock with apparent uuconcern. He had a dejected air, and his 

 brush drooped. He seemed more interested in the sky and the 

 view than concerned about Pigeons, and they on their part at 

 length hardly got out of his way, so poor a creature did he seem. 

 But just then he sprang into active life so suddenly that he made 

 me, watching at a distance, jump ; and in a few seconds he was 

 away with his Pigeon. 



12th.— Eooks noisy at nest -trees. 



loth. — Chaffinch sang a very little. 



21st.— Eooks have quite ruined a field of winter-beans which 

 should now be about two inches high ; most of them, are pulled 

 up. Damage to sprouted beans seems a new thing here. Several 

 Grey Crows reported lately. 



22nd.— A Kestrel. 



24th. — Clattercote reservoir still onlvhalf full, and four Coots 

 the only waterfowl there. A mixed flock of Finches on the banks 

 comprised Chaffinches (chiefly females), a few Bramblings (two 

 or three old males), Linnets, Tree-Sparrows, and one rosy- 

 breasted Redpoll. 



A very rough cold month, constant changes and cold through- 

 out. 



Mr. E. Tyrrell, of Banbury, recently showed me an adult 

 male Goosander, shot in the Broughton Fulling Mill brook in 

 1895, and a Sclavonian Grebe, shot on the moat at Broughton 

 in the early winter of that year. He also told me of an adult 

 male Smew, shot at Broughton by E. Freeman for the. late 

 occupier of the castle, and an adult Gannet, shot near the mill 

 above Banbury two years before. 



March 2nd. — The cover-keeper at Wigginton Heath told me 

 that last summer, after watching from a tree, he shot a yel- 

 lowish-white Badger, which unfortunately rolled down into the 

 earth. 



4th. — Two or three apricot-blossoms expanded. 



6th. — Greenfinches singing. 



