276 
CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES. 
^tuation, near Marie Hill, at a late hour in the evening, when the young birds 
were brought down to his residence in the heart of the town, and placed in a 
cage which was suspended in his garden. About three o’clock in the afternoon of 
the following day, the female Starling v/as observed at the bars of the cage, 
actively employed in feeding its young, which, by an instinct hardly inferior to 
reason, it had thus succeeded in discovering.— Gloumstershire Chronicle» 
Relationship of the Dipper (Cinclus) to the Ouzels (MerulaJ. —Young 
Garden Ouzels f Merula hortensis) are very similar in appearance to the Dipper, 
the more so as their tails are not then full-grown, and as they frequently cock 
their tails in the same manner as the Dipper. Their close relationship then 
becomes evident, though, under other circumstances, the claims of the Dipper to 
rank in the Thrush family has more than once been questioned. A Garden 
Thrush, it is true, has not, to a casual observer, many points in common with 
the Dipper, but the affinity is obvious through the Ouzels. The young of the 
latter, in fact, if seen beside a rocky stream with their short tails cocked in the 
manner of the Dipper, might, in the first instance, be mistaken for the latter 
species, so great is their resemblance. Another point in which the Garden Ouzel 
approaches the Dipper, is its partiality to water, the difference being, that it 
prefers ditches and stagnant pools concealed by thick foliage to rocky and pebbly 
rivulets, and, of course, that it never swims. — Ed. 
Distribution of the Girl BvNimG CEmberi:^a cirlusj in England.— In 
No. ix., for June (Vol. II., p. 164) of The Naturalist^ the Editor informs us of 
an instance of the recent occurrence of the Girl Bunting in Yorkshire, and I have no 
doubt but that he is right in supposing this to be the first specimen on record which 
has been met with so far north. It is not, however, true that it has hitherto 
been confined to Devonshire and the other counties on the southern coast. Many 
years ago I obtained two specimens at East Garston, near Lamborne, Berkshire; 
they wore male and female, and a nest with two eggs were procured at the same 
place—the only instance I have known of the latter having been met with in 
Britain. I still possess one of the eggs : the other I gave to my friend the Rev. 
Nathaniel Gonstantine Strickland. It resembles, but is easily distinguished 
from, the egg of the Yellow Bunting. I was directed to the birds by their 
peculiar note, a sort of sharp chirp, but which I cannot describe, having only 
heard it that onco, so long ago. I had the birds preserved at Oxford. Since 
then, two or three years ago, I shot one out of a flock of Yellow Buntings, near 
Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, and on the borders of Devonshire. This was in the 
middle of winter. I looked for more, but could not procure any. It therefore 
seems to associate with the Yellow Buntings as well as to resemble them. This 
fact—which, as far as I am aware, has not been mentioned before—seems to 
strengthen the supposition of Mr. Wood, that they may have been mistaken for 
