NOTES AND QUERIES. 123 
on Headington Hill. I think it not impossible that the Tree Pipit may 
_ occasionally winter with us; it has been observed in November and also in 
February (‘ Yarrell,’ ed. iii. vol. i. p. 570), and the extreme mildness of the 
_ past winter may well have helped to keep alive a stray individual who was 
hindered by some accident from joining his fellows in migration. — W. 
WaRDE F'owterR (Lincoln College, Oxford). 
Early nesting of the House Sparrow in the present mild Season.— 
In proof of the mildness of the season, I send you (Feb. 24th) a young 
Passer domesticus.* It was sent to me bya friend near here. His boy 
saw four together in the garden, and he made a snow-ball and threw it at 
them, knocking this one over. It must, I think, have been hatched in 
January.—H. 8. B. Gotpsmira (Huntworth House, near Bridgwater). 
The Brambling in Hants.—Very large flocks of this handsome Finch 
(Fringilla montifringilla) have visited the neighbourhood of the New Forest, 
and in smaller quantities the woods on the other side of the Avon. Some 
idea of the numbers frequenting certain spots in the forest may be gathered 
from the fact of a man killing twenty-nine, and wounding others, at a single 
shot. This reads very like “‘ murder,” and to a true lover of birds it is a 
sad record, yet the fact remains ; and I find that the numbers above quoted 
have in some instances been exceeded in other localities where the species 
has previously appeared, as in the case cited in ‘ Yarrell’ from the observa- 
tions of the late Mr. Stevenson, who records that forty-five birds were killed 
at a single shot near Slough, indicating how vast must be the flocks which 
sometimes visit us. In previous winters I have noticed the occurrence of 
this particular species only in very severe weather, when the birds frequented 
rick-yards and like situations in company with Sparrows, Yellow Buntings, 
&e.; but I am told that this season there is an unusually large crop 
of beech-mast in the forest, and this, notwithstanding the hitherto mild 
winter, may be the great attraction, for it appears to be a food of which the 
birds are very fond. Those I saw were literally ‘‘ crammed” with portions 
of the beech-nuts; some of them had the whole seed in their beaks, and 
the birds were very plump and fat. The man who shot them told me there 
was a conspicuously dark bird amongst the multitude he saw feeding on 
the ground beneath the trees, but it seemed to have fortunately escaped 
_ the fate of its fellows. Very little variation was observable in those I 
inspected, except that the tawny markings upon the breast and wing-coverts 
were redder, and the black bars in the wings more intense in some than in 
others, but not more than. would be expected in birds of a different age. 
In some previous records of this winter visitor I notice that a preponder- 
ance of males has been seen, thus resembling the winter flocks of its 
NS Duly received by the Editor. 
