674 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^'c. 



once enabled me to identiCy the bird. Together with one of 

 the sailors^ 1 collected a number of examples and put them 

 ill the boat, but I did not go to the ship with them immedi- 

 ately, and when I asked for them on my return, I was told, 

 to my great annoyance, that they had all been made into a 

 pie ! It was too late to get more, so I came away "without 

 any specimen after all. The weather was fine and clear, 

 with light haze at times ; this the lighthouse-keepers said 

 was the case when all the birds came. The wind was 

 E.N.E., light, force 2 to 3 ; but I was told by one of the 

 officers that, as a fact, the wind was variable during the 

 night. 



Writing to one of our party, Mr. Eagle Clarke says : — 

 ''I am much obliged for your information about the big 

 migration night at the Casquets ; it is most interesting 

 and important, for about the same time great numbers of 

 Whitethroats, Sedge- Warblers, and Willow- Warblers were 

 killed at St. Catherine's Point and at the Needles.'^ 



Yours &c., 



Baglan, Britonfeny. R. W. Llewellyn. 



2:3id Juue, 1902. 



[In reference to this communication, we may say that it 

 is hard to believe that a flock of Red-breasted Flycatchers 

 can have occurred on migration at the Casquets. This bird 

 is quite a South-east European species, and does not become 

 really abundant until the Balkan Peninsula is reached. It 

 is a pity that no specimens were preserved in order to settle 

 the question, but our opinion is that the birds in question 

 were probably Robins, which are of frequent occurrence on 

 lighthouses. — Edd.] 



Sirs, — In the autumn of 1896 I purchased eight young 

 Gouldian Finches in the grey and green nestling plumage, 

 l)ut was only successful in bringing through their first moult 

 three of them, all of which proved to belong to the black- 

 faced variety, Poephila gouldice. Of these three, one died in 

 1898 and a second in 1900, the remaining bird living in 



