Notices, Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, ^c. 101 



all the Vera Paz collections have been made, and I now go under 

 very favourable circumstances. Three days hence will take me 

 to the hacienda of San Geronimo, belonging to an English com- 

 pany, and where an English gentleman, whose acquaintance I 

 made a short time ago, is staying. He is now going to Coban, 

 and has asked me to join him. 



"Among birds I have lately got several that have pleased me 

 much. The Volcan de Fuego is a very fruitful locality, and I 

 never go there without finding something fresh. I have shot 

 this last month twenty-four species of Mniotiltidce, not includmg 

 some which I obtained last year. My Phalaropes are not Phala- 

 ropiis wilsoni, as I thought at first ; but Constancia has a skin of 

 that species. There are therefore two Phalaropes which occur 

 here.^^ 



Mr. G. D. Rowley writes from Brighton, as follows : — 



" For some time past I have been aware of the existence of 

 two kinds of Ringed Plover at Shoreham Harbour in this vicinity 

 — a larger and a smaller. This circumstance is so conspicuous as 

 to have attracted the attention of fowlers and others shooting ; for 

 on the wing the difference is very observable. I have now a fine 

 stuffed specimen of each kind before me, both killed in the last 

 week but one in August, this year, at Shoreham. The larger is 

 Charadrius hiaticula ; the smaller is no doubt Charadrius minor, 

 the Little Ringed Plover. Independently of the marked differ- 

 ence in size, the black beak, much more slender legs and thighs, 

 and general appearance, there is the black spot on the inner web 

 of the outer tail-feathers of my small specimen. 



" I should be curious to know if this British and real Little 

 Ringed Plover corresponds with the foreign skins usually sold as 

 those of that bird ; I fancy not. Our Charadrius minor (of Shore- 

 ham) arrives in May, when the young of the other species are 

 running about ; and, as I strongly suspect, sometimes breeds 

 here. The bird is not by any means so uncommon as repre- 

 sented by Yarrell. Mr. Swaysland, of the Queen's Road, always 

 has some on hand. It again appears in autumn, after the 

 spring migration. 



" The migration of birds is a wonderful thing— wonderful even 



