NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 53
AVES.
Bird Life in Epping Forest and New Forest in the Spring.—Mr.
Frank Brown writes as follows in the Field of March 11th :—"Some months
since you advised a correspondent who was desirous of studying bird-life to
visit Epping in preference to the New Forest, birds being more numerous in
the former, and my experience certainly supports your assertion. Perhaps
you may deem a brief account of a visit I paid to Epping Forest on Sunday
last (March 5th, 1899), of sufficient interest to place before your ornithological
readers. Leaving the train at Highams Park station, I made my way to the
lake, and in a few minutes had on my list of birds the rook, jackdaw, starling,
oxeye, tit, and wren. At the waterside I had a most pleasing surprise. A
small bird of a greenish-yellow colour rose at my feet, and joined its com-
panions in the branches of an adjacent alder tree. Not being sure of its
species, I brought my field-glass to bear on them, and found they were
siskins, the first time I had met with this bird in the forest. Moorhens
abounded, no less than nine being on the bank, one of them minus a foot, but
this did not seem to cause the bird any inconvenience, the stump being freely
used as it followed its fellows to the water, where it swam with one foot.
Passing on towards Chingford I noted a tree-creeper, long tailed titmouse (a
solitary specimen), hedge sparrow, chaffinch, mistle thrush, song thrush,
blackbird, and wood pigeon. The cheery spring note of the nuthatch came
from the summit of an elm by the roadside, and not far off the laughing cry
of the green woodpecker could be heard, nor was it long before I had the
pleasure of seeing its lovely plumage and noting its characteristic flight.
Connaught Water brought wild duck within my ken, and a carrion crow on a
tree near by was, no doubt, keeping a look out for a early egg. In Monk's
Wood I had the good fortune to get within range of a hawfinch. Generally
speaking, this bird is extremely shy, confining itself to the summits of the
loftiest trees. Robin redbreast was singing his plaintive ditty to the setting
sun as I made my way to the Foresters' Arms for a cup of tea, and a little
band of blue tits, with a marsh tit among them, sought shelter for the night
in a protective blackthorn bush. As I reluctantly left this glorious woodland
I heard the woodowl calling to the night, and blessed him for his quaint and
eerie cry." The Editor of the Field remarks thus on Mr. Brown's communica-
tion :—"By a curious coincidence, on the very day on which our corres-
pondent was making the above mentioned observations in Epping Forest we
were rambling round Lyndhurst Hill and Butts' Lawn, in the New Forest,
where, having in mind the recently published allegation that bird-life in the
New Forest is conspicuously absent, we noted the appearance of the following
species :—Nuthatch, pied wagtail, meadow pipit, thrush, blackbird, mistle
thrush, starling, chaffinch, woodpigeon, green woodpecker, greater spotted
woodpecker, great tit, blue tit, marsh tit, jay, sparrowhawk, rook, robin,
hedgesparrow, and wren. The time of year, of course, was not favourable for
the observation of many species, for none of the summer migratory birds were
there. Had it been otherwise the list of species would have been much
longer."
Stone-Curlew or "Thick-knee" at Fowlness Island.—Mr. H, M.
Matthews, of Fowlness Island, wrote as follows to Dr. Laver, under date
March 24th, 1899 :—"With this please receive a bird, name to me unknown,
excepting as apparently belonging to the plovers. It was picked up yesterday