74 



NOTE ORNITHOLOGY. 



amidst a paddle of soil-stained footprints, suggest that Reynard has 

 not returned quite supperless to the gorse. Crossing the trail of this 

 at right angles, is the double line of a brace of Foxes running at full 

 swing side by side as if on a joint expedition. Another had been 

 following a Hare (Lepus enropceus), and in full view, to judge from 

 the enormous bounds the latter had made. 



Foxes not only travel great distances, but they have regular beats, 

 which they follow night after night. They haunt isolated corn stacks 

 in fields, about which the snow is soon beaten into hard paths by their 

 tramplings. Here they take mice, which in the evening and night ven- 

 ture towards the outside, and rake out also any half-starved Starlings 

 or Thrushes which have crept in beneath the fringe of lower straws. 



Where recent floods have deposited banks of mud and sand in 

 the ' beck,' there is quite a network of Unes on the frozen snow to be 

 unravelled, from the big footprints of the gaunt Heron (^Ardea cinerea) 

 to the slender hair-Hke markings traced by the feet of the Grey 

 "Wagtail {Motacilla inelaiiope). 



Of Hedgehog {Erinaceiis eitropceiis) and Mole {Talpa etiropced) we 

 find no traces, except the dark heaps of fresh soil cast up in the night 

 above the snow, and the former we may be sure is now snugly rolled 

 up in dead leaves and grasses in hedgerow bottoms or plantations. 



Crossing a plot of swedes, I counted, without once diverging 

 from a straight line, upwards of one hundred roots more or less 

 excavated. In some instances little more than the outer rind was left. 

 That Fieldfares had done much of the mischief I have not a doubt. 

 The hundreds of tell-tale footprints about the bulbs all belonged to 

 them. Many also rose, and I shot one old bird with his head buried 

 in the root, and his beak filled with yellow pulp. Neither had Hares 

 or Rabbits first attacked the roots, and thus given countenance to the 

 hungry birds ; some roots were quite freshly attacked, with a hole 

 pierced through the smooth rind such as a gimlet would have made. 

 Rooks and Wood Pigeons also will do much damage to swedes during 

 a long storm. ==^=^ 



NO TE— ORNITHOL OGY. 

 Varieties of Common Wild Duck and Peregrine in Notts.— 



Two very beautiful varieties of Common Wild Ducks {A7ias boscas) were taken in 

 December last in the Decoy at Park Hall, and kindly given me by Mr. Hall ; 

 they were male and female. The following is a description of male : head and 

 neck, white, with a patch of green under each eye ; back, white ; wings, white ; 

 coverts, brown grey ; tail, normal, but two of curled feathers white ; breast, white, 

 with band of salmon grey across ; thighs, salmon grey. Female : a pale slate all 

 over with edgings of feathers bright sandy colour ; wings, slate ; speculum, pale 

 grey ; one normal feather on back. Peregrine Falcon {Falco peregj-mtis). A very 

 fine specimen of this grand bird, a female, was shot on January 3rd by one of the 

 guns shooting on the Park Hall estate. This bird will also be added to my 

 collection. — J. Whitaker, Rainworth Lodgfe, Notts., January 24th, 18 87. 



Naturalist, 



