Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/476

450 breast is much broader in the specimen before me than in the specimen figured, and is scarcely at all interspersed with any other colour. The lore is of a slaty blue colour; from the lore under the eye, and as far as the orifice of the ears, there is a tinge of chestnut intermixed with brown. The feathers, which form a chestnut band below the black bar on the breast, are nearly all tipped more or less with dirty white, and are black at the base. The flanks and under tail-coverts are dirty white, tinged with light chestnut; the under tail-coverts light chestnut.— (Blundeston Lodge, near Lowestoft).

—A short time ago I wrote to you saying T had found Starlings occupying Sand Martins' holes in a quarry. Since then, in July, I was surprised to find a brood of young Sand Martins in a hole in a stone wall. I watched the old birds for some time, as I felt sure there was a nest close by, but did not know where to look for it. Soon one of them flew into a dense mass of ivy on a wall, and shortly reappeared. Pushing aside the ivy, I found the nest. This is a strange case of retaliation on the part of the Martins.— (Bedford).

—I am glad to see that the Peregrines have again chosen our noble spire as their general roosting-place for the winter. There are almost always a pair that frequent it during the autumn and Winter months. On one occasion I noticed four soaring around the spire at the same time, one of which perched upon the summit of the weathercock. On another occasion, when I was up at the " Eight Doors," which open out on the roof at the top of the tower from which the spire springs (some 203 feet from the ground, the spire itself being 197 feet more), a fine Falcon pitched on the fretwork some thirty or forty feet above my head, and took not the slightest notice of my presence or voice. I once picked up a Snipe's leg there, which had evidently been left by them; and the workmen, when they were restoring the spire some eleven years ago, used to see them frequently bring Pigeons and Partridges there to eat at their leisure. A pair were shot there by the workmen in 1866, which afterwards came into my possession; the hen bird, a very old one, having at one time evidently been caught in a gin, having lost one of its toes, and the bill being much broken. Most people in the city know the look of the "Great Hawks" as they are called.— (Britford Vicarage, Salisbury).

—In reply to the editorial queries (p. 343) as to when, where, and by whom this Lark was shot, and by whom identified, I am now able to state that it was killed the winter before last, in a field on the Priory Farm, St. Helens, by a man named Mark Orchard. As to the species, Mr. Careless was aware of it before I took it up, inquiring how it had been procured. That a Sky Lark with a good crest has been taken for a veritable Crested Lark I can readily