120 



PisallanMS ptias. 



Occurrence of the Little Auk, (Mergulus alle,) at Barnsley. — On the 11th of 

 November, a curioiis bird was brought for me to name. It proved to be the 

 Little Auk, provincially the Eotche, or Sea Dove. It had been picked up 

 by a girl, crouching close to the steps of a house at Kingston Place, Barnsley; 

 no doubt exhausted in its long flight from the sea. When placed in a tub of 

 water, it swam and dived about with great rapidity. Portions of fish were 

 given to It, with a view of preserving it alive; it being far more desirable to 

 study birds in a living state, than as dead specimens ; being far away from 

 its native element, however, it pined away, and died on the 14th inst. The 

 bird-stuffer who is preparing it for my collection, proved it to be a male bird 

 by dissection, and was struck with the peculiar internal arrangements, dif- 

 fering from any that had come under his hands, which he pointed out. His 

 ingenious inferences corresponded with the descriptions in Mc' Gillivraj', 

 Yarrell, and other writers. From these, as from Montagu, Jardine, and 

 Knight's Pictorial Museum, in some of which are accurate plates of the bird, 

 I learnt, that it was not only a stranger to these parts, but that its occurrence 

 in England is so rare as to have the dates chronicled. It is not thought to 

 breed in this kingdom, except in the northern isles of Scotland. Dr. Ed- 

 monston considers it a rare visitant to Shetland, but it is more plentiful in 

 the Orkney Isles Its native home is within the arctic circle, whence it is 

 sometimes driven southward by storms. It abounds on the frozen coasts of 

 Greenland and Spitzbergen, even supplying sliip^' companies with a varia- 

 tion of food. Captain Beechy in his Voyage to the North Pole, while 

 desciibing the sceneiy of Magdalen Bay, on the west of Spitzbergen, says — 

 " At the head of the bay there is a high pyramidal mountain of granite, 

 tei-med Kotge Hill, from the myriads of birds (the Rotche) that frequent its 

 base, and which appear to prefer its environs to any part of the harbour." 

 To those who do not know the bird, it may be described as something 

 betweeen the Razor-Bills and Guillemots, but smaller, being not nine inches 

 long. — T. LisTEK. 



Achillcea tomentosa, dc. — In Babington's Manual of British Botany, it is 

 stated, on the authority of the Rev. — Little, that this plant is found on the 

 estate of Auchlunkart, Banffshire; but Sir W. J. Hooker says, that it had 

 been washed down from a portion of an old garden, about one hundred 

 yards distant. It is, in fact, a very doubtful native, and, like many others, 

 should be expunged from the list of truly indigenous plants. Babington 

 says that Carex Banningliauseniana is found in Banffshire, N. B. I should 

 like to know if any of your correspondents have gathered it in that county. 

 Carex elongata — a rare plant — I have seen at Auchmedden, a few miles east 

 of the town of Banff.— J. Rose, M.D., Haslar, Oct. 20th, 1854. 



