FIELD NOTES ON ESSEX ORNITHOLOGY. 95
sexual difference. Adult Cuckoos are very bad birds to
watch.
July Cuckoos are perhaps worth record. In 1912 we heard
the male at Noak Hill on the second, and on the same date in
1918 I heard both the male and the female at Theydon. It is
possible that a male (isolated by his persistent tri-syllabic
call from the other males) and a female cuckoo near my house
were actually paired in 1918 and 1919. The general opinion
is that this bird does not pair.
On the 4th May 1918 I saw and heard a Wryneck at Birch
Hall, my only record for the district—and, indeed, for the county,
so far as my own observations are concerned."
In 1911 I thought it wise to direct attention (in "Nature"
September 14th, 1911), to the regular campaign against King-
fishers near London. In August of that year a well-known
collector, by means of the deadly "Kingfisher-net" caught
altogether twenty-two birds on a short stretch of the Ching Brook
near Woodford. He actually offered me nine, and was adver-
tising the birds alive at one-and-sixpence each. Most of them
died in a few days, and several of their carcases reached my hands.
I took prompt steps to put an end to the business, and mention
it now merely as an illustration of the real status of the bird in
the county. The collector is now dead. He told me that all
these Kingfishers were taken on the same side of the net, a fact
which proved that each had been following the stream in a
southerly direction.
A note on a so-called "luminous Barn Owl," which we en-
countered at Hainault, appears in the "Zoologist" (1914, p. 399).
I considered that the white plumage reflected the moonlight,
and was not phosphorescent.
The Little Owl is still an irregular visitor to Theydon Bois,
although common and increasing in many other parts of the
county. Near Shonk's Mill, near Willingale, and in the woods
behind Purfleet, it is often the most noticeable bird in an autumn
or winter walk, as noisy by day as it is by night. I have seen a
Little Owl perched on the telegraph wires in broad daylight,
calmly watching the noisy passage of a train a dozen feet away.
On several occasions, in winter, the Peregrine has been
8 A Wryneck was reported for this district on 25th April, 1918. Trans. L.N.H.S., 1918,
p. 32.