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ground, which joins to my garden, for some weeks. They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in the walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet; but were frightened and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at rest.*

Three grossbeaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter; one of which I shot. Since that, now and then, one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.t

A crossbill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of

*Specimens have been killed at different times in this country, and instances are even recorded of their having even bred; the species, however, can only be placed among our occasional visitants. The specimen from which the figure in Mr. Selby's elegant Illustrations of British Ornithology was drawn, was taken on the coast, near Bamborough Castle, Northumberland. Colonel Montague mentions a pair that began a nest in Hampshire, and Dr. Latham records a young hoopoe shot in the month of June. The species is abundantly met with in the south of Europe; it also occurs in Holland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. In the winter it retires to Asia or Africa, where it is also a permanent resident.-W. J.

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One specimen was shot in the county of Dublin, and another in the county of Tipperary, in 1828. Loudon's Magazine.-W. J.

This also can only be placed as an occasional visitant, appearing most frequently in the southern counties of England, during hard and stormy winters. Mr. White (as we learn from the Naturalist's Calendar and Miscellaneous Observations, published in a separate volume, since the author's decease, by Dr. Aikin, and to which we shall occasionally refer) met with this species at different times, and found it feeding on the stones of damson plums, that still remained on and about the trees in his garden. This species forms the type of the genus coccothraustes.-" On the 14th May, 1828, the nest of a hawfinch was taken in an orchard belonging to Mr. Waring, at Chelsfield, Kent. The old female was shot on the nest, which was of a slovenly loose form, and shallow, not being so deep as those of the greenfinch or linnet, and was placed against the large bough of an appletree, about ten feet from the ground. It was composed externally of dead twigs and a few roots, mixed with coarse white moss, or lichen, and lined with horse-hair and a little fine dried grass. The eggs were five in number, about the size of a skylark's, but shorter and rounder, and spotted with bluish ash and olive brown, some of the spots inclining to dusky or brackish brown. The markings were variously distributed on the different eggs." J. C. Loudon, Jour. of Nat. Hist.-W. J.

They are by no means uncommon birds in this country. Many of them breed among the Horn-beam pollards in Epping and Waltham Forests.-ED.

the village, yield nothing but the bull's head, or miller's thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus),* the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla),† the lampern (lampætra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (pisciculus aculeatus).‡

We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and multitudes of widgeons and teals, in hard weather, frequent our lakes in the forest.

Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts up the fur of mice and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.

The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant supply of fresh mice; whereas the young of the brown owl will eat indiscriminately all that is brought; snails, rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.

The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young. The last swift I observed was about the 21st of August: it was a straggler.

Redstarts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristati, still appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.

I forgot to mention, that I once saw in Christ Church College quadrangle, in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin flying about and settling on the parapet, so late as the 20th of November.

The miller's thumb is found in nearly every river and brook in England. It harbours under stones, which the flatness of its head enables it to do.-ED. Mr. Yarrel, a most accurate and observant naturalist, in a number of the Zoological Journal, hints at the possibility of two species of eels being natives of this country. In this I certainly think Mr. Yarrel correct, their similarity rendering them easily confused. The species with which the London markets are supplied from Holland, may also be discovered, as our researches in the ichthyology of Great Britain, so long comparatively neglected, become more frequent. The grig of Pennant, which seems to be Mr. Yarrel's second species, appears in the Thames, at Oxford, at a different season from the common eel.-W. J.

There are three species of Eels in our fresh waters-the sharp and the broad-nosed eels and the Snig, which the editor had the pleasure of introducing to the notice of his friend, Mr. Yarrell.-ED.

There are six distinct kinds of sticklebacks.-ED.

At present, I know only two species of bats, the common vespertilio murinus, and the vespertilio auribus.*

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat,t which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave

* Dr. Fleming, in his Description of British Animals, 1828, enumerates seven species included in the genera rhinolophus, or those having membranes upon the nose; vespertilio, including our common bat; and plecotus, those with large ears.-W. J.

There are from twenty to twenty-three varieties of bats found in this country. It is curious that so observant a naturalist as Mr. White should only know of two.-ED.

We are indebted to Mr. George Daniell for the following particulars of the habits of two species of British bats, which were kept by him in confinement. They were originally given to me as a commentary on the statement in the text; but were subsequently communicated, at my request, to the Zoological Society at its meeting on November 11, 1834.

"In July, 1833," Mr. Daniell says, "I received five specimens of the pipistrelle bat from Elvetham, Hants; all of which were pregnant females. There were many more congregated with them in the ruins of the barn in which they were taken; but the rest escaped. They were brought to me in a tin powder canister, in which they had been kept for several days; and on turning them loose into a common packing-case, with a few strips of deal nailed over its front to form a cage, they pleased me much by the great activity which they displayed in the larger space into which they had been introduced; progressing rapidly along the bottom of the box, ascending by the bars to the top, and then throwing themselves off as if endeavouring to fly. I caught some flies and offered one of them to one of the bats, which seized it with the greatest eagerness, and devoured it greedily, and then thrust its nose repeatedly through the bars, with its jaws extended, closing them from time to time, with a snap, and evincing the utmost anxiety to obtain an additional supply of this agreeable food. The flies were then offered to the whole of them, and the same ravenous disposition was displayed; all the bats crowding together at the end of the box at which they were fed, and crawling over, snapping at, and biting each other like so many curs, uttering at the same time a disagreeable grating squeak. I soon found that my pets were so hungry as to require more time to be expended in fly-catching than I was disposed to devote to them; and I then tried to feed them with cooked meat but this they rejected. Raw beef was, however, eaten with avidity; and an evident preference was given to those pieces which had been moistened with water. The feeding with beef answered exceedingly well, two objects being gained by it: the bats were enabled to feed without assistance; and my curiosity was gratified by observing them catching flies for themselves. "A slice of beef attached to the side of the box in which they were kept. not only spared me the trouble of feeding them, but also, by attracting the flies, afforded good sport in observing the animals obtain their own food by this new kind of bat-fowling. The weather being warm, many blue-bottle flics were attracted by the meat; and on one of these approaching within range of the bats' wings, it was sure to be struck down by their action, the

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