be preserved. The birdstuffer informs me that he has had many curious varieties of the mole sent to him, but that this is by far the handsomest he has seen.—C. Matthew Prior (Bedford).
[Mr. Bell, in the second edition of his 'British Quadrupeds' (p. 139), notices several remarkable varieties of the mole, and amongst others the variety here described. He says, "It is found of a deep black colour, of a mouse-colour, dark olive-brown, pied, yellowish white, and wholly or partially orange."—Ed.]
The Merlin in South Wilts.—During the past winter I have had four notices of the occurrence of the Merlin in the immediate neighbourhood of Salisbury, which either proves that this bird is commoner in the district during the winter months than I at all realized, or else that there has been an unusual immigration of the species during this particular season. In November a fine male bird was shot by Mr. Powell, of Hurdcott House, some six miles from Salisbury; and in the same month another specimen was brought to the stuffer at Warminster, also a male bird. On the 2nd of January, 1877, I had a nice hen bird sent to me, also from Hurdcott, which had been shot by Mr. J.A. Tyndale Powell, and is now in the hands of Hart for preservation. The same gentleman, while shooting with a friend on January 13th, discovered a fourth specimen, a hen, much brighter in colour than the one he had previously sent me. It had been shot by the keeper about a fortnight previously, in the adjoining wood, and was hung up by the head on the keeper's gallows. I am glad to find from this that the Merlin is not so uncommon in the South as I at first thought. I have only noticed it myself once since I have been living in these parts, now some sixteen years, when I saw a hen bird chasing a Sky Lark, in pursuit of which it made fourteen distinct stoops, the end of the chase being hidden from me by the trees. Some little time back I wrote to Hart, of Christchurch, to enquire about the prevalence of the Merlin in the Christchurch neighbourhood, and he wrote me back word "Merlin and Hobby killed frequently," and on making a second enquiry of him he wrote "I find the Merlin is nearly as often killed as the Hobby; possibly the Hobby is killed oftener, but does not find its way to me," and during October, when at Christchurch myself, he showed me several specimens, one, a beautiful male bird, which he had himself shot while attacking his poultry, and which had not a single intermediate bar on its tail, thus resembling that of an adult male Kestrel, only blue in shade. No doubt it occasionally breeds in the New Forest.—Arthur P. Morres (Britford Vicarage, Salisbury).
[Mr. Wise, in his 'History of the New Forest' (p. 267), notices the fact of the Merlin occasionally breeding in the New Forest. He says in 1859 and 1861 Mr. Farren received two nests with three eggs, taken in old pollard hollies growing in the open heath, which in every way corresponded
