Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/49

Rh October 3rd.—A young well-grown female Partridge nearly over the moult, with white horseshoe.

5th.—A good many Jays about.

9th.—A Grey Wagtail in the brook here. Alarm note in flight is a highly-pitched sharp and very hard itch-it or itch-it-tit, uttered quickly.

10th.—Many Meadow Pipits in loose flocks and singly in swede fields. Lark sang poorly.

12th.—Redwings about hedges. Many Meadow Pipits again. Lark sang.

15th.—Some Swallows hawking flies round a big oak at Wickham. A Woodcock seen on Bloxham Grove.

29th.—The 'Field' to-day contained an announcement by Mr. W.W. Fowler that Mr. W.C. Carnegie saw a Swift at Churchill in company with a large number of House Martins on the 15th inst. This is a record late date for Oxon. Swifts were recorded as seen this month at Edinburgh, Bath, and in the Isle of Wight.

31st.—Song Thrush singing well. We have now only our (comparatively) few winter Robins. Mr. H.G. Thomson saw three Grey Crows flying over from north to south at Woodperry on the 23rd.

November 1st.—Fieldfares passed over my garden "chacking."

4th.—When pike-fishing at Byfield Reservoir, Northamptonshire, not far over the Oxfordshire boundaries, I saw no fewer than three Cormorants, which I was told had been there for about ten days. One bird was fully adult, and another quite immature. They passed most of their time sitting on the mud edge (the water being very low), occasionally hanging their wings out to dry, but I saw one busily fishing. The shots of a Snipe-shooter alarmed them considerably in the forenoon, and they took wing, circling round at a great height, and I thought they had gone for good. But they soon returned, and I afterwards learned that they were in the habit of visiting Clattercote Reservoir, in Oxon, occasionally remaining there for the night, and roosting in some tall elms on the bank. I think they remained about six weeks in the neighbourhood.

As my man was walking up the shrubbery to-day, a hawk dashed at a small bird. The latter dropped through some lilacs,