Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/131

Rh road. The 14th of May I heard the soft enchanting melody of the garden warbler. The 18th of May I noticed about a dozen male whinchats in the Eltham road, appa- rently resting on their journey northwards. Travelling from Ventnor to Culver-cliffs, Isle of Wight, on the 23rd of June, I observed numbers of swifts darting along the cliffs evidently on their passage, having crossed the channel, and made St. Catherine's thai morning. While at Culver-cliffs, looking through a glass at the fJeet of men-of- war at Spithead, manoeuvreing before her Majesty, I noticed, high in the air, hundreds of swifts crossing the Solent sea in large flocks. Was not this a very late arrival ? — Matthew Hutchinson; Blackheath.

The Shrew and Grasshopper Warbler. In a note to Letter XVI. of White's Sel- borne, Mr. Eennie doubts the propriety of the term "whisper," as applied to the trill- ing notes of the grasshopper warbler. I have little doubt that White confounded the sounds made by the shrew with those of the grasshopper warbler. As this little ani- mal is running along the bottom of a hedge, its low sibilous notes may not inaptly be called whispering. I am inclined to think that two shrews are in playful chace when I hear them, but as I seldom catch a glimpse, or more than a glimpse, I am not at all sure upon this point. The water-shrew makes similar sounds. I often hear a much more vigorous sibilous cry, which I used to suppose was made by a field-cricket, and many a time have I crept about on tip-toe in the hope of finding one sitting, all pro- per, at the entrance of its burrow ; it is now some dozen years since I was undeceived by a countryman, who assured me it was " only a sherrew whistling on the muck-heap.*' Since tliis I have often heard similar notes from shrews in confinement, when they are fighting, or alarmed ; if a worm is thrown to them they devour it with sibilous chat- tering. Led by White, I also had supposed that the hedge-bottom notes were the grasshopper warbler's, and I fancy I can remember being laughed at for saying so, as White was. Since I have met with the real grasshopper warbler in the Cambridge- shire fens, and elsewhere, I recognize its notes as perfectly distinct, nor has the bird ever continued them till I approached so near as White seems to have done to the au- thor of the whisperings. — John Wolley; Beeston, near Nottingham, March 19, 1846.

Song of the Fieldfare. My attention was on Sunday, the 25th instant, directed to what I at first supposed to be the song of the blackbird, but observing something pe- culiar in it, I stopped to listen, and on a nearer approach was not a little surprised to find it proceeded from a fieldfare, which was so earnestly engaged in song as to allow me to approach so very near, I being partially concealed, that I could not be mista- ken as to its identity. The song of this bird, which is very rarely heard in this coun- try, partakes of the melodious whistle of the blackbird, combined with the powerful voice of the missel-thrush. This rare occurrence may be attributed to the unusual mildness of the season, which has called many of the feathered tribe into full song, as in spring. — Edward Murch; Honiton, Devon, January 29, 1846.

Swallows never seen at the Carron Iron-works in Winter. I observe in the Febru- ary number of the 'Zoologist' (Zool. 1240) a paragraph entitled "Swallows at the Carron Iron-works in Winter." I can assure you that this is not the case. I have resided here for upwards of thirty years, and during that period I have never seen a swallow from about the end of September or beginning of October, until the end of April or beginning of May following. I may also remark that the temperature of Car- ron is much the same as that of the surrounding country ; and in the time of frost the ice on the pond is as thick and strong as the ice on any other pond or loch within ten IV