Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/50

26 and the Hawk following hit against a bough and lay stunned on the ground for several seconds.

6th.—Weather still very mild. Twenty-eight different plants in bloom in the garden.

19th.—Heard Redwings' notes overhead, at intervals, about 9 p.m.; rather foggy, calm, with wind N.E. to E.

21st.—Many Redwings and Fieldfares; these remained in good numbers all the winter.

22nd.—A female Partridge—a bird of the year, I believe—with pure white horseshoe. Very cold. N.N.W. wind.

23rd.—A Woodcock shot out of gorse on a hillside at Milcomb. News from Mr. Fowler that he saw half a dozen Crossbills in the parks at Oxford, on the 22nd. These birds have been numerous this year in various parts of England. Deep snow on the ground this morning, and more fell in the forenoon, about five inches on the ground; but thawing.

28th.—Cold winds lately. Obtained an immature Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria) here. (Vide 'Ibis,' 1899, p. 160.)

December 11th.— Missel Thrush's joyous rollicking song.

19th.—Very mild again. Violets, pansies, and primroses blooming; also wallflower and alpine wallflower, to a small extent. Our tortoise has foolishly emerged from a covering of leaves and earth at the foot of a bending wall just where it faces south-west—the spot it selected to lay up in.

20th.—Frosty for a few days.

28th.—Winter aconite in full bloom.

Mr. H.G. Thomson reports Wild Ducks, Wigeon, and Teal, plentiful this winter on Otmoor, owing to large floods. But wildfowl are not so plentiful there as in former years. Mr. Surman received a Cormorant from the neighbourhood of Witney this month; and he tells me he had one from Headington Quarry in the winter of 1896–7.

The following fragments of the history of two birds once found commonly in Oxfordshire may be worth preserving.

When I was at Kingham, in 1892, I interviewed Mr. Tom Phipps, aged sixty-three, who had been postboy and postman for fifty years. He had an excellent and accurate memory, was fond of recalling the former condition of Kingham parish (then