Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/276

250 possibility of its being an escaped importation; and the same may be said of Mr. Backhouse's specimen. As regards the birds met with by Pennant, looking to the ease with which the Pine Grosbeak could fly to this country from its Scandinavian home, and the vast forests of pine in which to this day whole flocks might roam unnoticed and unmolested, I confess I see no great reason to discredit his account. Antiquated records of birds are generally incomplete, and in the case of the Pine Grosbeak this is especially the case, but because a few reports may be disproved, we are not therefore to discredit all. That it is not found here now is no proof that it was not once found here.

The conclusion at which I arrive is that if the Pine Grosbeak were now to be installed for the first time as a British bird, the evidence would scarcely warrant such a step; at the same time the evidence is of such a kind that we are not justified now in rejecting it, especially as it has been standing in our lists for a great number of years, and has become firmly established there by the verdict of almost every writer on British Birds.

 

—I quite agree with Mr. Southwell, as regards the age of young Otters, that length would be much more reliable than weight (although I neglected to weigh three dead examples mentioned in my former letter), but think he will agree with me that it is practically impossible to measure a live Otter; even with a perfectly tame individual or a young one the result would not be likely to be very accurate. In 'Land and Water' for June 8, 1867, Mr. James Lomax writes that he has hunted Otters for forty years, and found very young cubs in almost every month of the year. With regard to the four last examples mentioned in my former letter (p. 100), I should be glad to correct a misprint: seven lines from the bottom of the page, "one of" should be inserted between the words "me" and "these"; and two lines further on, "specimens" should be singular.— (5, Radnor Place, Hyde Park).

—As any fact with regard to the habits or instincts of these two happily still indigenous British quadrupeds seems acceptable, I may add my mite, at least respecting the former animal, to the observations of Messrs. Cocks and Southwell (pp. 100, 172). I have only had young Otters sent me on two occasions, and not having my note-book with me I am not able to give the exact date, but one I know I received in January, and the other during the winter months. One