Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/51

Rh Sabine's Snipe, but not so dark in colour; the dark bars across the breast are well marked, and are continued down to the vent. The tail contained only eleven feathers, but some may have been shot away.— Williams & Son.

[If we understand Messrs. Williams correctly, the specimen in question may be said to be intermediate in form and colour between the Common Snipe and the so-called Sabine's Snipe. If so, we should much like to see it.— Ed.]

.—So seldom is this noble species now seen at Killarney, that it is not without regret I have to record the capture of a fine female bird, apparently in the second year's plumage, which was shot while flying over the Earl of Kenmare's deer park, about the middle of November last, by Denis Healy, one of the gamekeepers. The bird is now in the hands of Mr. Williams, the well-known taxidermist, in Dame Street, Dublin. The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaëtus) though commonly supposed to be no longer indigenous to Killarney, is yet not unfrequently observed in the mountainous parts of Kerry; and as I myself have, on more than one occasion, seen the bird hunting along the mountain sides, which border on the lakes, early in the spring, I believe there is good reason to suppose that the Golden Eagle still breeds in some of the less frequented parts of the district.—Arthur H. Bowles (99, Lower Mount Street, Dublin).

.—During November and December, 1876, a beautiful specimen of the young of the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaëtus) was taken, together with eight specimens of the Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus), in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, Suffolk. On the 14th of December a beautiful male Merlin (Falco æsalon) was shot on the ooze skirting the banks of the Woodbridge river. On the 18th of December a female, from the same place, was obtained; and on the 19th of December a second female was shot near the same spot. A Hobby (Falco subbuteo) I watched for several minutes, after having first disturbed him from trees, perched on a gate-post abutting on stubble upon which a large flock of Linnets were feeding.— (Great Bealings, Woodbridge, Suffolk).

.— On the 120th of October, Mr. Ripley, the birdstuffer here, showed me a young Jay, pure white, which had been shot within a few miles of York, a few days before. He had another of the ordinary colour, which was out of the same nest. The former had not a single coloured feather about it, but the whole of the plumage was of a uniform pure white. The legs of this bird were also of a whitish colour, as well as the bill; the iris, too, was of a very light colour, in fact almost white. Albinos of this species, I believe, are rare.— (York).

—It would seem that pheasants are now fairly established in Southern New Zealand, and are tolerably numerous.