Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/257

Rh crown of the head, nearly to its termination in a slight crest, the latter made more apparent when curled up by puffs of wind. The dull red of the neck merging into the dark colour of the back and wings, and blending below with mottled markings into the pure white of the breast. Under parts pure white, joining the conspicuous white patch on the wing (the secondaries). On examining the specimens in the British Museum, this bird appeared to correspond most closely in size and colour with that recently added to the collection by Mr. Sharpe, and obtained from the North of Europe, but the under parts were more purely white than in that example. The Grebe was on the same piece of water the following day, but too distant for satisfactory observation; on being disturbed it flew with considerable power, alighting again in the middle of the pond; by the next day it had left. I may mention that on January 30th about thirty Herons returned to the heronry in the woods of the Wanstead Estate.— (Leytonstone).

[So far as our experience goes, the Rednecked Grebe is the rarest of all the Grebes that reside in or visit the British Islands, and is only found here in winter. We have occasionally met with it in the tidal harbours and creeks of the Sussex coast when out after wild-fowl in January and February, but have never seen more than one or two together at a time. It rarely remains here late enough in spring to display the complete breeding plumage.—]

—At p. 106 Mr. Corbin mentions the occurrence of a variety of the Sand Martin. My father has in his possession a peculiar variety of this bird, which I caught a few years ago. I first saw it hawking for flies in the vicinity of a water-worn bank, in which a somewhat numerous colony breed annually, and after watching its untiring—though in my judgment not very happy—motions for some time, I at last succeeded in capturing it in one of the nests. Its darker relations seemed to regard it with intense dislike, chasing it with more or less anger whenever it came near them. In this bird the upper plumage is of an uniform bluish white, the lower parts from the beak to the vent of a pure glossy white. — (Wilsden).

—Mr. Ripley, the birdstuffer here, has lately received for preservation a Hawfinch, a pure white Sky Lark, and a pied Blackbird. The Hawfinch, a female, was shot during the early part of February, within four or five miles of York: it is rather a rare bird here. The Sky Lark, which I found to be a female, was shot on Askham Bog near here, about the 15th of the same month. The whole of its plumage was pure white: the bill, legs, and claws were extremely light-coloured, but the iris was rather dark. The Blackbird, a male, was shot about the same time, not far from here, and it was rather curiously pied. The neck and head were pure white, with the exception of