Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/39

Rh 14th.—A party of Martins high over the garden.

23rd.—Redwings.

31st.—Fieldfares.

November 12th.—A Woodcock, a rare bird here, seen at Milcomb.

16th.—Great flocks of Starlings. A farmer here recently caught a light greyish (nearly white) variety.

19th.—Examined a Peregrine Falcon—a male of this year—shot near Chipping Norton early in this month.

21st.—Missel Thrush singing lately. Grey Wagtail flew over the garden a few days ago.

24th.—A good many Redwings here, but hardly any Fieldfares.

December 23rd.—About 12.30 a.m., calm and starlight with a little haze, Grey Wild Geese very noisy, and apparently wheeling over the village, rather low down.

24th.—A few Redwings; no Fieldfares to be seen. About a dozen Siskins in some alders by the brook at South Newington. Their note on the wing at this season sounds like tweee or tweeze, thin and wheezy. When settled they utter a poor thin twiteree or twitzeree.

Marsh Warbler.—Mr. Fowler did not find a nest at Kingham this year; but he felt sure there was one (if not two), for he saw and heard the birds' as late as July 22nd—his latest date.

Jays.—A copy of a publication called 'The Gamekeeper' (December 1897) came into my hands. It contains an article by Mr. Charles Stonebridge, head gamekeeper to the Earl of Jersey, upon shooting Jays at Middleton Park. The writer states that, in one of the coverts, there is a plantation of what are locally called "Spanish Oaks," the botanical name of which he believes is Quercus cerris. The variety grows nowhere else on the estate, and seldom fails to bear a crop of acorns. In those years when the ordinary oak bears no fruit, Middleton is visited by a "plague of Jays." As a rule there are, he says, very few Jays about the place, but the season of 1897 being marked by the conditions stated above, a swarm of Jays then appeared to feed on the acorns. The writer continues: "The strange part about it is, that at this time the Jays appear to drop the artful, suspicious ways which are characteristic of the family, and one is able to shoot at them all day without frightening the birds away. On