Birds. 



6143 



deem the fact of their occurrence at Flambru' worth recording. — G. Norman ; Hull, 

 June 19, 1858. 



Occurrence of the Bee-eater at Kingsbridge, Devon. — I have just received from 

 a friend a male specimen of the bee-eater (Merops apiasier), which he had shot in a 

 newly ploughed field, apparently searching for insects, the remains of which I find its 

 stomach to contain.— //^^zr^ Nichols, Jun. ; Kingshridge, Devon, May 22, 1858. 



Hawfinch Building at Tonbridge. — A pair of hawfinches have built their nest this 

 year in an orchard in the vicinity of Tonbridge; but, unfortunately, the nest has 

 become a prey to a prying school- boy, who took the first egg and substituted in its 

 place a small blackbird's e^g. The next morning another egg was laid, but the black- 

 bird's was gone: the birds were then again robbed of their egg, and have in con- 

 sequence deserted. Their nest, however, has not been built entirely in vain, for a 

 pair of house-sparrows, seeing it deserted, are now constructing their clumsy domicile 

 on the top of it. — T. W, Greene ; Tonbridge. 



The Small Partridge. — In answer to the communication from the Rev. J. C. 

 Atkinson in the June number of the ' Zoologist,' (Zool. 6095), in which he asks me to 

 explain a discrepancy in my account of a small partridge shot on the heaths in this 

 neighbourhood, and that of Mr. Kidd who had shot them on Hindhead and its neigh- 

 bourhood, I can only repeat that I certainly have never remarked any difference in 

 plumage between the heath birds shot by me and the stubble-fed birds ; there may 

 be a slight difference, but in the instances I have seen it is not worth mentioning. 

 Fowley is not far from Hindhead, and it is the same line of heath from where I have 

 shot these birds to Hindhead, the latter being the very much higher ground. My 

 locality is Woolmer Forest, a large tract of waste land of many thousand acres, and 

 which adjoins the Fowley estate, which is also surrounded by heath land ; but I have 

 also shot these heath birds in the neighbourhood of Ash and Aldershott, which is a 

 continuation of the same line of wild heath country, but, except in the smallness of 

 size and the absence of corn in their crops, which contained heather only, I confess I 

 could never find any appreciable difference between them and the common partridge. 

 I have before me the letter of a friend, an excellent sportsman and naturalist, 

 who resides not many miles from Godalming, though on the opposite side from 

 Hindhead, who, after having read the articles in the ' Zoologist,* writes to me as fol- 

 lows, throwing quite a different light upon the " little black heath-birds " of 

 his country, and those of Mr. Kidd's description. He says : "I presume these are 

 the same that I had up to about ten years ago on my heaths : they never went into 

 enclosures ; were black inside from living on hurts and heath. In one instance, 

 they were thrown away by a cook, as being unwholesome, from finding when she 

 drew them that they were quite black, and I used to send a brace of them, as I should 

 of grouse, they were so high-flavoured : there was no particular difference in their plu- 

 mage ; they were a turn smaller in size and darlier in colour, but not sufliciently of 

 either but that they might have passed muster as ordinary partridges, if attention had 

 not been drawn to them ; the only remarkable part about them were their legs, which 

 were always bluer than the common." I can only say, in reference to this, that I have 

 always put my birds, when killed, indiscriminately into the bag with others, and have 

 never remarlied the difference of the colour of the flesh, if there is any in our heath- 

 birds here ; neither have 1 noticed the blueness of the legs, as mentioned in 

 my friend's letter, but in his county the hurtle-berry abounds even more than it does 

 on Hindhead, and this most probably influences the colour in the flesh of these birds. 



