118 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
1865, in the tackling of a heavy pair of sheers erected at Shoebury for the pur-
pose of dismounting a large gun. Early in July, 1881, a nest containing ten eggs
(doubtless the produce of two birds) was found here by one of my brothers.
Mr. C.E. Smith states (31. 52) that on August 26th, 1858, he noticed a white
specimen in a flock, and another with tail and wings of a dull cream-colour on the
18th of the following month. In September, 1880, Mr. Travis received from Cla-
vering a young and pure white specimen. I saw one here with the primaries of
one wing almost entirely white, on January 9th, 1877. A dark cream-coloured
variety, presented by Mr. C. Baron, and a lighter cream-coloured variety, presented
by Mr. S. Salmon, both killed at Saffron Walden, are in the Museum at that town,
as is also an almost white individual from Wenden, presented by Mr. Salmon.
Round Orsett, Mr. Sackett knows of several stuffed albino specimens. A variety
with a more or less brilliant chocolate throat, instead of black, is rather common
I captured one on January 4th, 1877, and another with it very brilliant on
February 26th, 1878.
Those who agree with the late Col. Russell on the Sparrow question would
have been gratified by a sight which was to be seen here in the early part of June
last (29. June 15). Upon the south-east corner of our house, in a position
which has been regularly occupied for many years past, was a half-finished Mar-
tin's nest. A short time previously this nest had been burglariously entered by a
pair of Sparrows, who took possession of it, undeterred by the fact that many others
of their kind in previous years had paid the penalty for this offence of being
shot by me. This year, however, one of the intruders met with a different
fate. For several days the hen was to be seen hanging by her neck from the nest,
swayed by the breeze, and suspended by a thread of horsehair some eight inches
or nine inches in length, which had somehow got twisted round it,—a warning to all
evil-doers of her kind. This occurrence singularly resembles a similar one de-
picted by a woodcut in Yarrell (37. ii. 93), which represents the sad fate that befel a
Sparrow which had built its nest in the ornamental frieze of the Rotunda, in Dub-
lin. Amongst the materials used for that purpose there chanced to be a woollen
thread, with a loop at one end. By some accident, the bird got its neck into the
noose, and, all its efforts to escape being in vain, was miserably hung below its
own home. In the instance now recorded, however, the bird was hung, not
below its own home, but below the home of a much more worthy bird which it had
" evicted," and had caught its neck, not in a noose at one end of a piece of twine,
but in a loop formed by a knot in the middle of a long piece of horsehair. Similar
occurrences are, I believe, not very rare.
Chaffinch : Fringilla coelebs.
An abundant resident. White or pied varieties sometimes
occur.
Albin figures (3. ii. 50) a curious variety having the head and neck, wings and
most of the tail-feathers white or nearly so. He saw it in the possession of a
Mr. Noble, who told him that "it frequented his brother's garden at Havering
Bower in Essex, where he used to feed it a long time before he could take
it," which he at last did on April 20th, 1732.
In the Museum at Saffron Walden is a variety from Wenden, many years since
presented by Mr. S. Salmon. It has the whole of the under-parts, the tail and the
quill-feathers of the wing, pure white ; the crown and nape, faint grey; the
back white, tinged with canary yellow, strongest over the tail and on the
shoulders ; wing-coverts pale brown. There is also an adult male, shot at Wal-