NOTES AND QUERIES. 109 



song was the number of borrowed notes of other birds. It often 

 started with the most perfect Blackbird's notes, then before one had 

 realized the change it bad merged into that of the Thrush, and ended 

 off with the usual Blackcap's phrase. At other times the Blackbird's 

 and Thrush's notes were more prolonged ; and again the bird would 

 begin with its own song, but would bring into the middle of it one of 

 the well-known notes of the Nightingale. But there was yet another 

 note which puzzled me for several days, and it was not until I had 

 actually seen the Blackcap singing it that I would believe this species 

 was capable of such mimicry. It was an attempt at the Great Tit's 

 " ze-wit, ze-wit " (repeated some eight to ten times), but without any 

 of the metallic ring that the Great Tit always gives it. As I had 

 never heard of the Blackcap as a mimic, I naturally thought of the 

 possibility of this bird being an Orphean Warbler ; however, after a 

 great deal of trouble (as the bird was very shy), I satisfied myself with 

 the help of opera-glasses that this was not the case. — Norman H. Joy 

 (Bradfield, near Beading). 



Colour of the Eyes in Coccothraustes vulgaris. — In my ' Cata- 

 logue of Shropshire Birds,' published in 1897, occurs the following 

 passage : — " In 1891 I caught a young Hawfinch at Caynton, which I 

 brought up by hand and kept for a couple of years. I always noticed 

 that, when angered, his irides were suffused with a much deeper 

 purplish red tint than when he was quiescent." And in a footnote 

 add, " I never saw the irides of a living Hawfinch greyish white, such 

 as one sees in stuffed specimens, and which colour is only assumed at 

 death." I write this because it bears out the interesting remarks of the 

 Bev. Maurice C. H. Bird anent the colour of the eyes in Fuligula nyroca. 

 Unfortunately authors do not always confine their errors to colour of 

 the irides. — G. H. Paddock (" The Hollies," Haygate Boad, Welling- 

 ton, Salop). 



Increase of Goldfinches. — I have only recently seen the December 

 number of ' The Zoologist ' (1905), and notice (p. 463) notes upon the 

 increase of the Goldfinch in Middlesex, Herts, and Bedfordshire ; in the 

 latter county this fact being accounted for by the species being scheduled 

 for several years. In the Scarborough district the Goldfinch, usually a 

 rare species, has been much more abundant during the past twelve 

 months, and many nested last spring. I heard of three nests actually 

 within the borough boundary, and of a score or more without it, and 

 of these only one was destroyed — all the others safely fledging the 

 young birds. The Goldfinch receives no special protection in this 

 district, therefore the increase in numbers cannot be attributed to this 



