6142 



Birds. 



obliged to be kept on purpose to keep thera clown, or the outcry of the fanners would 

 be quite unbearable. Tbis man is accustomed to catch in the course of the year 

 many hundred couples of rabbits on this property and on the adjoining farms, and he 

 states that he very seldom meets with any but the usual-coloured rabbits ; sometimes 

 he has met with a black one. Last year I saw an old rabbit near the house com- 

 pletely yellow or light straw-coloured ; afterwards three young ones made their 

 appearance ; these were not killed until towards the month of June, when the old one 

 and two of the others were destroyed, and the remaining young one disappeared from 

 where it had been before seen, though the other rabbits of the usual colour still 

 remained at the same spot. This year, in the month of April, at some considerable 

 distance from where the yellow rabbits before mentioned had their burrow and used 

 to reside, two or three very small completely yellow rabbits were seen sitting at the 

 mouth of the same hole, in company with several of the common-coloured gray rabbits, 

 apparently of the same size and age as the former ; but no old one of that colour was 

 anywhere to be seen, which must have been the case had there been any such about. 

 Since the month of April these yellow rabbits have increased in numbers from three 

 to eight or ten at the same spot ; they are of different broods and sizes, and cannot be 

 the offspring of the young yellow ones. In addition to these, four or five yellow ones 

 have also appeared at other places quite distinct from the former, in a cover preserved 

 for the game, where there are a great number of the common ones ; one or two more 

 have also occurred elsewhere ; so that altogether there must now be from fifteen to 

 twenty of these strange-looking rabbits amongst the others, and the latter are not the 

 least alarmed at their difference of colour. I am at a loss how to account for so many 

 of these yellow rabbits springing up, as it were, all at once in so many neighbouring 

 places. Amongst them all in no instance has an old one of that colour been seen. 

 Although rabbits will at night travel a good way for food or to consort with their 

 friends, it is very seldom, when food is at hand and their burrows near, that they will 

 go any considerable distance from home. The spot where the old yellow rabbit and 

 her three young ones were first noticed is not the place where the present numbers of 

 that colour are now to be seen, though it is no great distance from it. What is the 

 cause of this sudden increase in the number of these yellow rabbits ? Another some- 

 what unusual variety very common here is in the squirrel, of which there are numbers 

 about with tails completely straw-colour, as well as many of the usual colour. Of the 

 white and pied pheasants before alluded to I have many still about, and every year 

 several broods of young pheasants may be seen, some consisting of the variegated 

 specimens and others of the common colours. I may also add that a poor old mole- 

 catcher who is employed here states that many years ago he caught a nearly white or 

 very light dun-colour mole, for which he got a guinea. — W, H. Slaney ; Halton Hall, 

 June, 1858. 



Hooded Crows at Flambro^ Head. — Being engaged in collecting Diatomaceae 

 under the cliffs at Flambro' Head, on the 6th of June, I noticed a pair of Corvus cor- 

 nix (here called Norway crows) flying about the face of the cliffs, where no doubt they 

 had a nest. This surprised me not a little, for, hitherto, I had considered the Scotch 

 Highlands — where I have noticed them in immense numbers — to be their usual 

 southerly summer habitat. On referring, however, to Yarrell, I find I have been 

 labouring under a wrong impression, and that Corvus cornix has been noticed to breed 

 even so far south as Norfolk, and that this is by no means unusual at Scarbro': still I 



