Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/80

58 about 1853 a man named Hart came from Christchurch and settled in Salisbury, and meeting him one day be mentioned the fact of his having shot and also taken the nest of the Great Grey Shrike, upon which Hart (a member of the family now well known as birdstuffers and naturalists at Christchurch and Bournemouth) asked him if he should know the bird again if he saw it; to which King replied that he should know it from a hundred different kinds of birds, and on Hart taking him into his room where his collection of birds was kept, King at once pointed out the Grey Shrike as the bird he had both taken the nest of and shot. The occurrence of the Great Grey Shrike in our more immediate neighbourhood is not uncommon. I have a specimen myself that was shot in the Easter week of 1876 at Bishopstowe, about seven miles from here; and a pair were trapped last winter in our water-meadows at Britford, one of which was kept alive by a man in Salisbury for some little time, until the poor creature died, probably from starvation. Mr. Norwood also informs me that some years back a pair of these birds were shot in Hurstbourne Park, near Whitchurch, by one of Lord Portsmouth's keepers named Ford. He killed them during the month of May, as they were flying amongst some large bushes, and this being late in the year for their appearance amongst us it would seem probable that they were about to breed.— (Britford Vicarage, Salisbury).

—During the past autumn Buzzards have made great additions to their ordinary numbers in the south-west of Scotland. There are, in the county of Kircudbright, several spots where, as I know the nests myself, there is no doubt that the Common Buzzard breeds every year; but, irrespective of these, stragglers seem to have occurred in many parts of the district. Several Bough-legged Buzzards have also been trapped and shot during the autumn months; and there is, I have good reason to believe, a regular autumnal movement of both these species to various parts of Scotland. It remains, however, an open question as to where they come from, but they appear to move from east to west.— (late Captain Coldstream Guards, Guards' Club, S.W.).

—An adult male Brent Goose, Bernicla brenta, was shot by a man named Bennett at an osier-bed quite close to this town, and the birdstuffer here has it for preservation. A man at Banbury, the birdstuffer, a most intelligent man, well acquainted with birds, assures me that he had one to stuff some nineteen years ago, which was killed at Warkworth, in Oxfordshire. It is curious that this species should be found so far inland. Since writing the above, hearing I was interested in the Brent Goose, a man called to inform me that as he was on the embankment near this town, on the first Sunday in December, he saw