Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/204

178 termed "fancy birds," while some which are most useful to the agriculturist have no protection, and are in consequence in great danger of extermination. There are no two more deserving members of the rural police than the White and Brown Owl: the foolish fashion of exhibiting the masks and wings of these birds in the form of hand-screens is leading to their constant persecution and slaughter, and in some parts of the country they are fast becoming scarce. A birdstuffer in Taunton informed me that on an average he mounted fifty Barn Owls and forty Brown Owls a year, and, as I have sometimes seen half-a-dozen fresh victims brought into him at once, I can well believe that these figures are not over-stated. There is another birdstuffer in the town who seems to do an equally large trade in mounting unfortunate owls. So keenly are they looked after that when a short time since a White Owl was so ill-advised as to show himself in the Priory Meadows five gunners watched patiently for him evening after evening until one succeeded in bringing him down. The natural result is an inconvenient increase of small vermin. One of the villagers here told me that last spring he trapped more than sixty field mice by one row of peas in his allotment, and that unless he had been thus vigilant in destroying these small depredators his crop would have been quite lost. Years ago he stated it would have been unusual to have trapped more than two or three. Surely it is time that something was done in the interest of poor gardeners to protect their best friends, the owls, from senseless slaughter.— (The Vicarage, Bishop's Lydeard).

—The following are the particulars of the capture of a bird of this species, as sent me by Mr. Filleul, of Biddisham:—"A Purple Gallinule was caught in a ditch at Tarnock, in Badgworth parish, on August 25th, 1875. It is now in the possession of a farmer of the name of James Burrows, whose lads caught it. It was caught alive, and kept for a few days in a hamper. It died of starvation, I suppose, and was then stuffed. I have seen it twice: it is a very handsome bird, shaped like a Coot, but the legs are longer." I understand that another was seen at the same time.—

—While Snipe-shooting one winter round Hickling Broad, in Norfolk, I noticed some small object splashing in the water at the side of a dyke, and on proceeding to the spot I discovered an unfortunate Kingfisher, which had come to grief in a very singular manner. The bird had evidently at some former time been struck by a shot which had passed through the upper mandible. This wound was quite healed up, but a small piece of the horny substance of the beak had been splintered, and into the crack produced by the fracture two or three of the fine fibres which form part of the flowers or seeds of the reed were so firmly fixed that the bird was held fast. It must have been flying up the dyke, and, brushing too closely to the reeds that grew on the banks, got