Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/449

Rh —A single example visited the pond on lawn.

—Often flushed in kitchen-garden and in shrubberies. A small plantation of two acres adjoining the house was one morning beaten through, when fourteen were flushed.

By the side of the stream below the house the Common Sandpiper was regularly seen in the spring working its way to its nesting-station on the moors; and the Wood Sandpiper was once identified. Close outside the confines of the grounds Snipe occasionally nested, and both Whinchat and Stonechat; while Hen Harrier, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard, and Merlin were all noted.

Water Rails were common throughout the year, and it is believed that they occasionally nested in the shrubberies.

In one very severe spring, when snow lay on the ground until the middle of April, both Golden Plovers and Lapwings came into the garden; they were nearly starved, but would not eat the food put about for them.

Cormorants were frequently noted passing over, and were only too often found poaching in the Trout stream below.

The parish of Buckland Dinham is in the East of Somerset, three miles north of Frome, and only three miles from the borders of Wilts. It stands 420 feet above the sea-level on a hill which rises gradually above it to over 600 feet. It contains rich meadows and pastures, and some of the finest Cheddar cheeses are made in the dairies. A large wood of over 200 acres is within half-a-mile; the local ornis is rich in Warblers and Woodpeckers. A small stream runs at the foot of the hill on which the village is built. Zool. 4th Ser. vol. I., September, 1891.