Birds. 



8851 



the authority of Mr. Alfred Newton, this species is known to have bred 

 during this year in some parts of Denmark. Mr. Southwell, of Faken- 

 ham, informs me that "a vague rumour" was current in his neigh- 

 bourhood, early in September, that a nest had been found somewhere 

 near Lynn ; but adds, " I cannot discover the slightest foundation for 

 the report," and my own inquiries have failed to elicit anything satis- 

 factory on this point. I have not heard of a single bird having been 

 seen since the last three were shot, but should a remnant remain with 

 us throughout the winter — and the state of our climate, as compared 

 with that in their native country, is not, I believe, incompatible with 

 their doing so, if undisturbed — Another season may produce evidences 

 of their nesting with us, when, the novelty of their appearance having 

 passed away, they shall, with other troubled spirits, attain to that 

 happy state in which " the wicked cease from troubling, and the 

 weary are at rest." 



In my former paper I mentioned that the seeds taken from the 

 crops of some of the Yarmouth birds " had been sown in pots, under 

 the care of Mr. Youell, at his nursery-grounds." The result of this 

 • experiment has been thus communicated to me by Captain Longe, 

 whose notes on the subject will be read with much interest. He says : 

 — " The female shot near Breydon, on the 8th of June, contained in its 

 crop four different seeds, which I sowed in separate pots. These I 

 have ascertained to be Medicago minima, Chenopodium album, Poly- 

 gonum Convolvulus, and Poa annua. The plants were submitted to 

 the editor of the 4 Gardener's Chronicle,' who concurred with me as 

 to their identity. Three of the birds shot at Horsey on the 10th of 

 June, by Captain Rising, contained no other seed in their crops than 

 the Sagina procumbens (pearlwort)." 



I must here also make a correction in my previous notes (Zool. 

 8715). "The first female killed at Yarmouth " should have been de- 

 scribed as picked up on the beach * this being the one whose gizzard 

 contained the small stones weighing three-quarters of a drachm. Of this 

 specimen Captain Longe remarks, " It is somewhat curious (should 

 only sand have been found in the gizzards of others), since it would 

 imply that, where this bird had been, it had either been unable to pro- 

 cure smaller, or that the food it lived on required a larger stone in the 

 gizzard for digestion ; for from the crop being empty, and its early 

 appearance, it is only reasonable to conjecture that the bird had never 

 reached our coast before it was overtaken with fatigue." He believes 

 the seeds of Polygonum Convolvulus to have been mistaken for those 



