ADDENDA.
283
a printed notice requesting sportsmen generally to refrain from shooting
them for a season or two. Their greatest enemies, however, proved to
be foxes, and Mr. Bateman has had the mortification of seeing his Tinamus
gradually being exterminated. A few are still left in the neighbouring
parishes, and these were increased in the spring of 1888 by eleven more
birds which were turned out of Mr. Bateman's aviary. The bird much
resembles s hen Pheasant, with the absence of the tail; it is capital eating
and the flesh is quite white. Its food is varied ; consisting of field mice,
sparrows, corn, grass-seeds, thistle-tops, and insects of all k incis. The eggs
are about the size of a domestic hen's, and much resemble a purple plum
with the bloom rubbed off. The nest consists merely of a few grass
straws in a standing crop of barley. For further particulars, see the
Essex Naturalist, ii. pp. 102 and 206, and the Field, Feb. 33, 1884, Sept.
12, 1885, and April 14th, 1888.].
Great Snipe (p. 243).
Mr. Harting writes me: "About twenty years ago—I think in September,
1869—I was shown by Mr. Hughes, of Brentwood, a good specimen which he
had just shot at Stanford Rivers.
Prof. Newton has favoured me with the following memorandum by his brother. Sir Edward
Newton. I am quite unable to suggest the species to which this bird belonged.
" On the 31st of May, 1883, about 3.30 p.m., when crossing the bridge near the stables at
Audley End, I saw what I thought was a Turtle Dove, on a bough hanging over the water. Carl
Brochner was with me and I called his attention to it. He said it had a crest, but I did not see
the crest. It flew up from the bough as if hawking a fly (there were a great many May-flies over
the water), as Starlings and other birds were doing, and returned to its perch. I then saw that it
was not, as I had supposed, a Turtle Dove. As it flew up, it appeared to me to have a forked
tail. Brochner said it was a Tay, but it certainly was not. Had I been in America, I should have
said It was one of the Tyrant Flycatchers. The bird was about the size of a Turtle Dove, and of
a uniform dirty cream-colour, without any striking markings.
"[Sd.] E. N.
" Magdalene Coll.
" 4th June, 1883."