[vol. X. NOTES. 251 



GOOSANDER IN MONMOUTHSHIRE. 



A Goosander {Mergus m. merganser) was shot at the Ynis-y- 

 fro Reservoir near Newport, Mon., on January 15th, 1917. 

 It was a young male by dissection in first winter plumage 

 and weighed 2 lb 14 oz. The bird is a very unusual visitor 

 to the county. R. C. Banks. 



BLACK-WINGED STILT IN IRELAND. 



Early in April, 1916, a Black-winged Stilt {Himantoi)U,s 

 himantopus) was killed at the Lighthouse on Tory Island, off 

 CO. Donegal, and forwarded to Mrs. R. M. Barrington of 

 Fassaroe, Bray. Owing to the Rebellion, and the dislocation 

 of postal arrangements, the bird was almost too far gone for 

 preservation on reaching us, and I was unable to ascertain the 

 sex. This species is extraordinarily rare in Ireland, the last 

 recorded instance being over seventy years ago. 



W. J. Williams. 



MOOR-HENS EATING FRUIT. 



Perhaps it is not generally known that the Moor-Hen 

 {Gallinula c. chloropas) is partial to ripe fruit. 



A gamekeeper friend of mine, whose house and garden 

 stand on a lonely moor in Somerset where Moor-Hens are 

 extremely abundant, informed me last spring that his plums 

 had been partly destroyed by these birds pecking holes in 

 them ; they flew into the trees and ate the fruit, discarding 

 the stones. At the Palace Moat, Wells, one evening last 

 September, I noticed a Moor-Hen fly on to a fruit net which 

 was hanging in folds against an apple tree. The bird walked 

 up the fold of the net and pecked vigorously at an apple 

 growing on the tree. There was no doubt that the bird was 

 eating it. Stanley Lewis. 



[The Moorhen has been already recorded as devouring 

 pears on a standard tree {Zool, 1866, p. 33) and R. F. Tomes 

 says it feeds freelv on fallen apples ( Vict. Hist, of Worcester, I.). 

 F.C.R.J.] 



Hooded Crow Breeding in Staffordshire. — Mr. J. R. 

 B. Masefield has kindly pointed out that we have omitted 

 to notice an interesting record of the breeding of a pair of 

 Hooded Crows {Corvus c. comix) in Dovedale in 1915, which 

 appeared in Dr. Shipton's " Zoological Record for Derbyshire '" 

 in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archceological and Natural 

 History Society (Vol. XXXVIII., January, 1916, pp. 219 



