Miscellaneous. 395 



Alle at Ipswich, and three more examples are mentioned by Mr. Mum- 

 mery as having been met with near Margate. It would appear that 

 the strong northerly winds which prevailed at the end of October 

 caused a considerable number of these birds to take refuge in the in- 

 terior of our island. I have heard of no less than nine instances in 

 this part of England, six of these birds having been picked up in 

 Worcestershire and three in Shropshire. The whole of these were 

 obtained on or about the 28th of October, the very day mentioned 

 by Mr. Mummery as that on which his specimens were procured. 

 At the same time a young Stercorarius Richardsoni and a young Sula 

 bassana were obtained near Worcester, and have been added to the 

 rich ornithological collection of the Natural History Society in that 

 city. 



I have further heard of two or three instances of the occurrence of 

 Mergulus Alle near Oxford, during the last week in October. 



H. E. Strickland. 



Worcestershire, Dec. 4th, 1841. 



New Crustacean Animal. — We learn that at Kerguelen's Land 

 Captain Ross had found a Crustacean animal, which of all yet 

 known appears to come the nearest to the extinct group of Trilo- 

 bites. Captains Ross and Crozier left Sidney early in August, de- 

 termined, if possible, to pass the winter in the vicinity of the Ant- 

 arctic pole. 



Mus agrestis, Linn. — In a recent communication by M. de Selys- 

 Longchamps to the Academy of Sciences at Brussels*, he has stated 

 his belief that the Mus agrestis of Linnaeus is a distinct species from 

 the M. arvalis of Pallas, and from all the other European Arvicolce de- 

 scribed by him in his ' Etudes de Micromammalogie.' This opinion 

 is founded upon the examination of a skin lately sent him from Stock- 

 holm ; and he thinks it probable that it is identical with the A. neg- 

 lecta of Thompson, described in a former Number of this Maga- 

 zine f. — L. J. 



DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SYLVIA RUBECOLA IN PARTS OF BELGIUM 

 AND GERMANY. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



The disappearance, of late years, of that familiar warbler the 

 Redbreast, Sylvia rubecola, is a circumstance worthy of being re- 

 corded in your * Annals.' Being occupied for some time past in 

 making out the ornithology of Belgium, I have been struck, during 

 my researches, with the absence of this bird, which used to be com- 

 mon when I first visited the continent in 1819, though even then 

 not so frequent as it is in England. For several years it has totally 

 disappeared from the provinces of Brabant, and East and West Flan- 

 ders, and is so scarce in parts of Germany that it is difficult to meet 

 with a specimen. Unwilling to rely on my own judgement alone, I 



* Sec L'Institut, No. 413. p. 404. 

 t No. for June 1841, p. 270. 



