CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



107 



Sandpiper and stint. — Presuming- an interrogatory communica- 

 tion to be not entirely repugnant to the plan of your Magazine, I have 

 sent the following-, it being- to me the only plan of solving- the difficulty 

 in which I find myself. 



I have often remarked, during- my ornithological rambles on the coast, 

 the alternately dark and white appearance presented by the flocks of a 

 species of Sandpiper, as they skim the surface of the water. 



Till your edition of Montagu came into my hands, I had always 

 regarded it as the Stint (Fringa Cinclus) of Bewick. Now in Montagu 

 the stint is said to be a name for the Dunlin, which it seems is not 

 abundant, (whereas this species is extremely so,) and no notice is taken 

 of the characteristic I have mentioned. 



Now the question is, am I right in calling it the Fringa variabilis ? 

 it seems strange that Montagu should have omitted so striking a pecu- 

 liarity. Pliny. 

 Lancaster. 



Rookeries. — At a village called Hatherby, about four miles from 

 Gloucester, there is a rookery, the nests of which are built in poplar 

 trees ; is it not an unusual thing ? 



In the last number, December, N. N. wants to know how he may 

 establish a rookery ; I have been told it may be accomplished by placing 

 some old nests in the trees where you wish to establish one. 



Alpha. 



Gloucester. 



Sagacity in a horse. — I am unwilling to trespass on the public 

 stock of room in the Field Nat.'s pages, but have just seen an instance 

 of sagacity worthy of notice, — that of a horse in one of those large coal- 

 waggons going down one of the steep avenues to the Thames, turning 

 the fore wheel against the curb-stone, and keeping it there as a drag 

 during the whole descent. T. 



Singular habit in a bachelor's cat.— If the following re- 

 markable fact is likely to amuse any of your readers, you will oblige a 

 great admirer of your " Field Naturalist." I am a bachelor, and really 

 a happy one, though I anticipate many an incredulous smile on the 

 lips of some of your fairer readers for my choice of the epithet ; but I am 

 a bachelor, and consequently never pass an evening, when alone, without 

 my tea, with which I generally have an egg boiled, or a fine Yarmouth 



