254 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Eedstart is rare in the Barnstaple district, and scarce every- 

 where in North Devon. They were the only pair of birds which 

 I have found actually resident in North Devon. 



While onExmoor, near Brendon, in June last year I watched 

 a certain bird for some time, and satisfied myself that it was a 

 male Harrier, but I do not know which species. I think it must 

 have been the Hen-Harrier. The female was also present, and 

 the probabilities are that they were resident. 



A Short-eared Owl (Asio accipitrinus) was flushed on Halsinger 

 Down, Braunton, by members of the Botanical Walk, on July 

 16th. This is one more instance of this bird being in the 

 Braunton district during the summer (vide Zool., January, 1907, 

 p. 23). 



During September I noticed a King-Ouzel (Tardus torquatus) 

 in the Tavy Cleave, near Dridestowe, Dartmoor. On Exmoor, 

 according to my own somewhat limited experience of the district 

 and to the wider experience of others, the King-Ouzel has become 

 very much reduced in numbers, and is not so often seen as it 

 used to be. 



There was a Purple Sandpiper (Tringa striata) on the Kiver 

 Taw in the second week of December, and also several single 

 Grey Plover about, and numbers of Golden Plover. On Jan. 2nd 

 I spent the best part of the afternoon watching two Brent Geese 

 in the water near Crow at the estuary. 



A White-tailed Eagle (Haliaetus albicilla) was shot during 

 March by a farmer near West Buckland, who saw it sailing over 

 a field, and thought it was going to attack his lambs. The 

 bird was set up by a Barnstaple birdstuffer, at whose premises 

 I saw it afterwards. The bird was in poor plumage, and the 

 tail was very much abraded, several of the shafts of the tail- 

 feathers being quite bare of barbs. This indicates, perhaps, 

 former captivity, as the state of the tail might well have been 

 caused by being dragged over the bottom of a cage. The colour 

 of the tail was a dirty sandy colour, the weight, in the flesh, ten 

 pounds, wing expanse a little over seven feet. The bill was 

 brownish black, and the cere was not yellow but of a dark brown 

 shade. There were numerous bristles on the skin around the 

 base of the bill. The specimen was that of a young bird. Ac- 

 cording to Messrs. Matthew and D'Urban, the majority of the 



