Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/46

24 ordinary number of old and young, every third bird would be an old one, supposing all the young birds grew up; but how different is the case, not one in fifty being adult! It would be wrong to suppose that because young Wood Sandpipers, Green Sandpipers and Ruffs are met with so early in the season they have therefore been bred in this country. They are simply passing on their regular autumnal migration, just as the Common Sandpiper leaves us so soon as the young are able to fly well. A few hundred miles are nothing to these birds. The three species just named breed comparatively near us, whilst the Common Godwit, Knot and Sanderling, which I believe breed exclusively within the Arctic Circle arrive only a few days after them. It seems quite possible the three first-named species were attracted on their migration by the unusual quantity of fresh water on the grass-lands.— (North Lesmond, Newcastle-on-Tyne).

—I send the following account of the occurrence of six Hoopoes which were seen in this neighbourhood during the mouth of June last, and which account 1 believe to be thoroughly trustworthy, having seen and questioned the eye-witness myself. A young man named William Holbeck, who knows well all the common birds of our district, was floating gently down the river in a boat, about two miles and a half from Salisbury, when he was attracted by the sight of some curious birds that he had never seen before. They were flitting about some osier-beds on some little islands in the middle of the stream. They consisted apparently of two old birds and four young ones, the younger birds having the appearance of having scarcely reached their full feathering, and being more distinctly marked than the old ones. He watched them closely for some ten minutes, during which time they took little or no notice of him, the two old birds flitting on in front and uttering a kind of chirping noise as they apparently hunted for insects and caterpillars on the willows, and the younger birds following them. He came home in a great state of excitement, and begged Mr. Norwood, the head man in his office, to come out at once with his gun and secure some of them, as they were birds he had never seen before, and which he felt sure must be rare ones. He described them as being about the same size as Thrushes and as being barred with black and white on the back and tail, the old birds having a splendid top-knot, which they every now and then extended "in this way "—i.e. holding up his hand and spreading out his fingers apart from each other as he said so. Mr. Norwood (who is himself an ardent ornithologist and birdstuffer, and from whom Holbeck had gathered a good deal of information about birds) brought out Morris's book of birds, and showed him several of the plates before he turned to the Hoopoe, which bird he told me, from his clerk's description, he at once conjectured they were; but directly he turned to the picture of the Hoopoe, Holbeck, with much emphasis, declared,