Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/467

Rh scarce. I think these birds must suffer greatly from hard winters. I examined, at Henley, a Little Owl shot at Turville Heath at the end of 1894. The birdstuffer told us he preserved three local Little Auks during the visitation in January, 1895. I may mention that one obtained on Port Meadow at that date is preserved in the University Museum; the Chipping Norton example has come into my possession. In an old collection of birds at an inn I found a specimen of White's Thrush; unfortunately no particulars respecting the collection are forthcoming. During our stay we noticed the arrival or presence of Grasshopper Warbler, April 25th; House Martin, 26th; Whitethroat, 26th; Lesser Whitethroat, 27th; Common Sandpiper, 29th; Sedge Warbler, 29th; Swift, May 1st; Turtle Dove, 1st. We heard the Wryneck twice; this bird is not common now in Oxon.

In Oxfordshire the Stone Curlew is known as the Curlew or Curloo. Barren open stretches on the undulating downs, as open and exposed as possible, are the haunts the Curloos chose; for there the bird's long legs and watchful eye enable him to guard against a surprise. The spot they select on our hills may be a vast field, partly under plough and partly derelict arable land, fallen back to poor condition, or "tumbled down," as they say, sweeping smoothly down to the foot of the hills in gentle basin-like slopes. Here on the short bare grey-green herbage, strewn with grey-and-white flints, the great down Hares sit out in perfect safety. As I examined the field with the glasses I counted five of them. Many pairs of Peewits were scattered over the field, and now and then one or two would get up and tumble about in the air, and their sweet calls came softly up. Rooks and Starlings were dotted about, the former probably up to no good. Again, the haunt may be a turfy down, with a great white blaze on its side, and on its lower slopes big juniper bushes, some old yew trees, and a belt of spruce and larch. The scrubby herbage is strewn with flints and white chalk-stones raked out of the rabbit-burrows, where a pair of Wheatears flit and run. From its most barren slope, thickly strewn with flints and chalk-stones, and sparsely clothed with short wiry grass and stonecrop, and dotted with dead plant-stems a foot high, I heard the "clamour" of the Curloo; and from it a pair rose and settled again, in view, but where the dead stems stood thickly. On being raised once