NOTES AND QUE H IKS. 



469 



May 5th. There are plenty of suitable breeding places (weed- and 

 rush-grown osier and withy beds) in the Cherwell Valley, in the 

 neighbourhood of Somerton. — O. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Bittern in Warwickshire. — I do not think I have recorded that a 

 very thin Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) was brought from Fenny Comp- 

 ton to a birdstuffer during rather severe weather, on Jan. 28th, 

 1909.— 0. V. Aplin. 



Brown-throated Quail in Oxfordshire. — A Quail was picked up 

 under the telegraph-wires at Adderbury on May Gth, 1909, and 

 brought to me while in the flesh. It had been heard calling in an 

 adjoining clover-field since the 3rd of the month. In this example 

 the chin and throat are dark brown, and the only sign of the black 

 anchor-shaped mark found in C. coturnix is a small black spot at the 

 bottom of the throat. It would thus appear to agree with the 

 description of the hybrid birds between C. coturnix and the form 

 known as C. capensis (found in South Africa and the islands sur- 

 rounding the coast) described by Mr. Ogilvie Grant in his 'Hand- 

 book to the Game Birds,' vol. i. p. 181. It is a male, weighed 3^ oz., 

 and seemed fairly fat. I have had it preserved. — 0. V. Aplin. 



Some Migration Notes from Yarmouth. — Up to time of writing 

 the annual autumnal migration has not provided local naturalists 

 with many surprises. A Water-Bail was found dead in the heart of 

 the town on Sept. 25th, having struck an overhead wire w 7 hen flight- 

 ing, and two Land-Rails found themselves in trouble from a similar 

 cause on the 13th and 16th respectively ; in this case, however, 

 neither were injured, and I saw 7 them alive in two public-houses, 

 where they were being exhibited as " foreynors," to the no small 

 bewilderment of brains none too clear and unclouded. Their flight 

 must have been less forceful, or they had undoubtedly shared the 

 same fate as the Water-Rail. Redstarts swarmed the St. George's 

 Park on Sept. 16th, and numbers were seen, with Wheatears, by a 

 gentleman cycling on the road between Lowestoft and Yarmouth. The 

 first Hooded Crow was shown me dead on Oct. 4th. This species 

 has been scarcer locally, so far, than for a number of years past ; I 

 am inclined to think it does not now visit us so commonly as at 

 one time. Larks, Linnets, Chaffinches, and other small birds were 

 arriving all day, and late into the afternoon of Oct. 10th, after which 

 date they came in only spasmodically, and, so far as I can gather, 

 in no great numbers. Only on odd days have the various Gorvines 

 been observed trooping in. My nephew, who was stationed on board 

 the ' Leman and Ower ' Lightship in October, tells me that, compared 



