NOTES on BIRDS. 



Peregrine Falcon and Hawfinch in Notts. — A fine female Fako 

 peregrinus was unfortunately shot in the parish of North Leverton, on 

 Saturday last, ist February. The species is said to be not uncommon in 

 the Trent valley ; but I do not know of any recent records. 



The Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) seems to have been 

 decidedly common this winter, as we have two or three in this parish, 

 and I have heard of others in neighbouring- parishes, and also in the 

 southern part of the county. One bird frequents my garden, and will come 

 for bread right under the window. — Alfred Thornley, South Leverton 

 Vicarage, Lincoln, 4th February 1902. 



Thrushes and Barbed Wire.— Birds quickly adapt themselves to their 

 surroundings. Walking on Kelsey Beck side in this parish (Cadney), on 

 the 14th January 1902, I discovered that where there are no stones in the 

 water-carried sandy soil which lies for some distance on both sides of the 

 beck, Thrushes (Tardus musicus) used barbed wire, which had been taken 

 down for fox-hunting and left on the ground, for anvils. In two places on 

 the Howsham side the birds had even discovered that the points of barbs 

 broke the shells more readily than elsewhere. I was lucky enough to find 

 one empty shell of Helix arbustorum still hanging on a barb, and found three 

 other good specimens which illustrated this new 7 use of American wire. — 

 E. Adrian Woodrl ffe-Peacock, Cadney Vicarage, Brigg, 16th Jan. 1902. 



Vernacular Names of Birds. — The Editor's notes on this subject are 

 most timely and valuable. Though I know North-West Lincolnshire with 

 a life-long experience, and have collected scores of sheets of notes on local 

 names, unrecorded ones with a very limited circulation, as fresh and new 

 as they are bright and original, are ever coming' to hand. To-day, 17th 

 January 1902, for instance, I heard by letter from Winterton : — ' I called 

 Mrs. T.'s attention to a handsome Denmark Crow (Corvus comix L.) wheel- 

 ing over the hedge just opposite. She told' me she believed 'that was its 

 proper name,' and added immediately, 'but Scawby-way-on, we used to 

 call 'em Second-Murnin' Craws.' ' Now the idea of half or secondary 

 mourning in dress is a thing- of yesterday, of ladies' newspapers, in this 

 part of Eng-land. Another name for the same species is 4 Flannel (or 

 Frannel) Back Crow.' This is much older, and recalls the time when 

 undyed and unbleached home-spun flannel was the grey colour of ' the 

 Hoodie's' back. Kirton-Lindsey is the locality for this name. — E. Adrian 

 Woodruffe-Peacock, Cadney, Brigg, 22nd January 1902. 



Cats and Birds. — What is the reason which causes so many apparently 

 good birds fit for carnivora food to be taboo to cats ? On the 16th December 

 1901, a Jack Snipe (Gallinago gall inula L.), which had been killed by flying 

 against the telegraph wires by the railway at Kirton-Lindsey, was brought 

 to my father's cat. She would not look at it even. Cats will not eat 

 Starlings or the Turdinae, which used to lie about for days in a half-dead 

 and perfectly helpless condition at Dunstan House in this town, after 

 injuring themselves by attempting to dash at full speed through the plate- 

 glass windows. Robins most cats will eat, certainly my father's does so, 

 but even they make many cats-sick. During the g-reat frost of 1895 there 

 were hundreds of dead Turdinae lying' about the gardens and hedges at 

 Cadney, but they were rtever touched by cats. At the end of last summer 

 the carr drains were low and stagnant, and, because contaminated with the 

 bacilli of enteritis, Partridges and Turdinae died by hundreds, but w ere 

 never touched by cats, even when fluttering on the ground and unable to 

 fly. The starvation in one case and a foul-smelling- disease like enteritis 

 may account for the birds being neglected at Cadney, but why healthy 

 young Blackbirds and Thrushes should be passed by here requires some 

 further explanation. Can any brother naturalist help?— E. ADRIAN WOOD 

 ruffe-Peacock, Wickentree House, Kirton-Lindsey, 23rd December [901. 



1902 April 1. 



