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NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



AVES. 



Fire-crested Wren in Dorset. — On March 28th a Fire-crest (Regulus 

 ignicapillus) was seen near Charmouth, flitting about the base of a 

 hedge by the Eiver Char, three hundred yards from the seashore. A 

 strong north-east wind was blowing, but the afternoon sun shone 

 warmly on the sheltered side of the hedge, where six or eight Chiff- 

 chaffs were also disporting themselves ; they were constantly fluttering 

 in the air after flies, and occasionally uttered a few notes of their 

 simple song, but in such weak tones as to suggest they had recently 

 arrived on our coasts. A Golden Crest appeared for a time about the 

 same bushes, and once or twice made a dart at the Fire-crest, when 

 the difference in the plumage of the two birds was strikingly contrasted, 

 the black line through the eye of the Fire-crest and the bright yellow- 

 green of its shoulders giving it a distinguished appearance. We 

 watched the bird through our telescopes at a distance of ten yards for 

 about twenty minutes. It is the first time we have seen it in this 

 country, though we are familiar with it in the woods around Baden- 

 Baden. — G. Lister (Lyme Regis, Dorset). 



Fire-crest near Tunbridge Wells. — On March 3rd, near Tunbridge 

 Wells (in Kent), I saw a small bird in a place where Gold-crests have 

 been fairly numerous this winter, which I supposed to be of that 

 species ; however, it approached so near that I was able to see dis- 

 tinctly the black eye-stripe and white eyebrow which are charac- 

 teristic of the Fire-crest. Since then several others, including a 

 well-known local ornithologist, as well as myself, have several times 

 observed this bird, and a second — no doubt its mate — has also been 

 seen. — H. G. Alexander (3, Mayfield Road, Tunbridge Wells). 



Continental Long-tailed Tit in Yorkshire. — Near Kirkham Abbey, 

 in Yorkshire, on March 18th, 1905, I saw a Long-tailed Tit, of which 

 I obtained an exceptionally near view, enabling me clearly to see that 

 it entirely lacked the black line over the eye, the whole head being pure 

 white. It was in company with birds of the ordinary British type. — 

 H. G. Alexander (3, Mayfield Road, Tunbridge Wells). 



