54 
J. E. LITTLEBOY—NOTES ON BIEDS 
1873, and that the information may he thoroughly relied on. 
I notice that this occurrence is also reported by Professor Newton 
in the new edition of YarrelPs ‘British Birds.’ The woodchat is 
only an accidental visitant to England. Its habits are very similar 
to those of its congener, the red-backed shrike, differing principally 
from that bird in its choice of a nesting-place. The red-backed 
shrike generally selects a hedgerow or a furze-hush, the woodchat 
always chooses a tree, and appears to prefer the oak. It feeds “on 
beetles, grasshoppers, and many other insects,”* * * § which, like other 
shrikes, it impales on thorns for the purpose of preservation. It 
feeds also on small birds and mammals. The woodchat was first 
identified, as a British bird, by the Bev. Gilbert White, and 
reported in a letter to Mr. T. Pennant, dated Selborne, August 
30th, 1769. It is described as “Lanius minor cinerascens cum 
macula in scapulis alba.”f It has since been taken in Surrey, 
Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire, and, I am 
pleased to add, in Hertfordshire. 
3. The Holler ( Coraeias garrula). — The Bev. C. A. Johns, in his 
very popular work, ‘ British Birds in their Haunts,’ records the 
capture of a roller on Chipperfield Common, on the 20th of 
September, 1852. Mr. Johns was, at that time, residing at 
Callipers, and he mentions the roller as having been shot “ close 
to my garden.” I find that the occurrence is also recorded by 
Professor Newton in the fourth edition of Yarrell. The roller can 
only be classed among accidental visitors to the British Isles. 
It breeds in some districts of Southern Europe, in Algeria, 
Palestine, Asia Minor, and South-western Siberia, and winters 
in Arabia, the valley of the Upper Nile, and throughout Southern 
Africa.This is one of the most brilliant and conspicuous 
of British birds ; its head, neck, and the upper portion of its body 
are of light blue, shaded off with green, and if it could only be 
induced to visit us in the early spring, it might be considered 
satisfactorily to explain the much-debated and enigmatical reference 
by Alfred Tennyson in ‘In Memoriam’ to “the sea-blue bird 
of March.” 
4. Montagu’s Harrier ( Circus cineraceus ).—A Montagu’s harrier 
was shot by Captain Young at Hexton, near Hitchin, in the year 
1875, and is still in his possession. This species was first recorded 
as British in the ‘ Transactions of the Linnaean Society’ in the year 
1803. It is at present only an accidental visitor to the British 
Isles. It is a pale, slate-grey bird, with black primaries, and 
a black bar across the secondaries ; it frequents dry moors, downs, 
and corn-fields, its food consisting principally of frogs, lizards, mice, 
moles and grasshoppers.§ In its habit of flight, and general appear¬ 
ance, it nearly resembles the hen-harrier, a description of which 
will be found in my report for 1883. 
* Seebohm’s ‘British Birds,’ vol. i, p. 612. 
t ‘Nat. Hist. Selborne,’ed. 1832, p. 93. 
J Seebohm’s ‘ British Birds,’ vol. ii, p. 327. 
§ lb., vol. i, p. 133. 
