6208 



Birds, 



June, 1857, by a boy I employed to collect there, was one which bore a strangely 

 close resemblance to the eggs of the snow bunting. But beyond the bare possession 

 and presence of tlie egg, I had no other data on which to ground my conclusion, for 

 the boy could neither tell me what the nest was like from which he took ihe egg, nor 

 where it was he obtained it. I at the time (with sundry doubts of reservation) adopted 

 the opinion that Mr. Bond was kind enough to give me on the matter, which was 

 that the egg in question was probably one of the numerous varieties of the egg of the 

 common E. citrinella. Mr. Doubleday brings down upon me the great authority of 

 Selby, united to liis own experience and observation. Although feeling that a humble 

 tyro like myself ought unhesitatingly to bow submission before such powers, yet I must 

 either hold that if it be a general rule for E. nivalis to avoid pitching upon trees, my 

 snow bunting was the exception to prove that rule; or else must deem myself to have 

 been for some three weeks the victim of an optical delusion, and that my bird was not 

 even the shadow of a shade, having no existence whatever beyond the intangible limits 

 of my mental vision. But for the following reasons I must remain firm to my belief 

 that the bird I saw was a bird, genus Emberiza, species nivalis. The field I saw it in 

 was a large one bordering on a salt marsh, part of the field lying in fallow, part green 

 with turnips. The field has a high hedge round it, in which on one side stand two or 

 three elm trees. In this field I must have started this bunting more than a dozen times 

 during the space of three weeks. The bird used when started to settle again among 

 the turnips a little farther on, never allowing me to get within shot, and if I persisted 

 in following it up, would at last fly off and alight on the hedge, or else on one of the 

 trees. One wet and windy day, when looking after snipe, I as usual started the bird 

 out of the turnips, and although it got up at a considerable distance, fired at it, and I 

 fancy struck it slightly, as it fluttered down into a hole in the hedge, and here I got 

 so close to it that 1 was just about to lake it up, deeming it badly hurt, when it flew 

 out, was carried off by the squall, and I unfortunately saw it no more. Siill I had 

 been quite close enough to be in ray own mind quite certain as to the bird's identity. 

 With regard to its being of a while colour, I do not think this fact has any weight 

 towards proving that my bird was not nivalis. "A few years ago'' (I quote an extract 

 from a letter of Colonel Montagu which is to be found in Yairell, vol. i. p. 426) " I 

 shot more than 40 (snow buntings) from the same flock, during severe weather in the 

 month of January, hardly any two of which exhibited precisely the same plumage, but 

 varied from the perfect tawny to the snow bunting in ils whitest state." In conclusion, 

 Mr. Newman's suggestion that I might have seen the pretty little Muscicapa atricapilla, 

 and have mistaken it for E. nivalis, will not hold ; firsts because in the winter months 

 a summer visitant like this little flycatcher w^ould find it difficult to obtain sufiicient 

 food to sustain life; secondly, because M. atricapilla is a rare bird with us in Devon- 

 shire, and I have only seen it twice, and that at very distant intervals; and ihirdbj, 

 because though I candidly confess myself a tyro, yet I do give myself credit so far as 

 to think it hardly possible to so palpably blunder in the very rudiments of Ornithology 

 as to confound birds which differ so widely in their habits as a flycatcher and a bunting. 

 — Murray A. Mallhetvs ; Raleigh Home, near Barnstaple. 



Note on the Blackbird sucking Eggs. — A few days ago one of my brothers observed 

 a blackbird discussing what he evidently regarded as a great dainty. On my brother 

 approaching the bird reluctantly quitted his meal, which was nothing less than an egg 

 of the common song thrush. Has any ornithologist noted egg-sucking to be a failing 

 of other blackbirds? or is this feat of gormandising a unique instance? — Id, 



