Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/130

104 her cage attracted by the meat. Only last month she killed a large cat in the same way. I could furnish many other anecdotes of her did space permit. The mode of hunting by the Golden Eagle is most interesting to watch. Generally speaking two of these birds hunt together, a hare being the favourite prey. When the hare is started one of them follows it as near the ground as possible; the other poises in the air, or as a falconer would say "waits on," and watches intently. If a rock or anything else intervenes, and the bird in pursuit loses sight of the hare, the other at once stoops and takes up the running; the first then "waits on," and so on. The hare has little chance of life unless there is a hole in which to hide.— (Glendarary, Achill Sound, Co. Mayo).

—A Rough-legged Buzzard is reported to me as having been trapped on Exmoor this winter; it is described as having been very light-coloured in its plumage, so may prove an adult. At the beginning of November a Green Sandpiper made its appearance by a warm drain close to my house, and was to be noticed there daily for some six weeks, when it disappeared, and I feared it had been shot; however, after a fortnight's absence it returned, and one day I flushed from the same drain a smaller Sandpiper, which seemed tamer than the other bird, rising with a feeble "weet," and flying over the field at a short distance from me. I am pretty positive that it was a Wood Sandpiper. About Christmas a Curlew Sandpiper was shot on the moors a little to the east of Taunton, and is, I should judge, in almost complete winter dress, in which state it is but rarely obtained in this part of the kingdom. It is not so gray on the back as the Dunlin in its winter plumage, and still shows many of the crescentic markings which characterize the young birds shot in September and October; but all the under parts from the bill to the vent are pure white, and the upper wing-coverts are very hoary, being dark gray spotted with white, not a little resembling the summer plumage of the Wood Sandpiper. Whilst on the subject of Sandpipers I may add that last summer, when fishing on the moors, I saw a Common Sandpiper rise a few feet into the air from off a bank adjoining the stream, and while it rose and slowly descended again it warbled a very agreeable little song; a clump of furze separated me from the bird and the stream by an interval of a few feet, so that the bird did not see me, while I was sufficiently near to see it clearly and to catch what was to me a hitherto unknown song. It is on record that the Wood Sandpiper also pipes a few pleasing notes.— (The Vicarage, Bishop's Lydeard).

—An adult specimen of the Little Gull (Larus minitus), in winter plumage, which had been shot near Woodbury, was shown to me in the flesh on the 29th November last. On the 12th January two immature specimens were shot on the Exe, below Topsham, by Mr. Douglas Hamilton and Mr. Benjamin Cleave, who have kindly presented