26 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Humber, the only other occurrence of the species in the district 

 with ^^ hich I am acquainted is an example reported in The 

 Naturalist (Vol. VII., 1857, p. 197) to have been procured at 

 the same place — Hemsworth Dam — in the autumn of 1856. 



Walter B. Arundel. 

 [In his Birds of Yorkshire (p. 478), Mr. T. H. Nelson saA^s the 

 Common Scoter " has been met with on most of the large 

 tarns, lakes, and reserv^oirs, and on man}' of the rivers, particu- 

 larly in the West Riding." — Eds.] 



GREY PHALAROPE IN WARWICKSHIRE. 



On September 11th, 1910, an adult male Grey Phalarope 

 {Phalaropus fulicarius) was shot on a small muddy pool at 

 Morton Bagot, near Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, and sent 

 to Messrs. Spicer and Son, Birmingham, for preservation. I 

 examined it immediately after it had been set up. In the 

 Victorian History of Warwickshire this species is spoken of as 

 " an uncertain winter visitor, but in some seasons not rare ; 

 it appeared in several localities in 1844, 1853, 1857, and 1886." 

 Beyond this I have only been able to find one record {Zool., 

 1892, p. 26), though, doubtless, specimens have occasionally 

 been allowed to pass unrecorded. A. Geoffrey Leigh. 



VORACITY OF THE LARGER GULLS. 

 Anyone who has spent much time among the east coast fisher- 

 men and gunners, is probably well acquainted with different 

 stories as to the well-known voracity of the Herring- and 

 Black- backed Gulls, and of the extraordinary accidents that 

 occasionally result therefrom. 



It may be doubted, however, if the instance that I brought 

 to the notice of the British Ornithologists' Club in April, 1911, 

 has often been echpsed. Pashley, the well-known naturahst 

 of Cley, sent me a Great Black-backed Gull {Larus marinus) 

 which had been shot in January by one of the local gunners. 

 The bird was found to have swallowed a stake of wood twelve 

 inches long, and this had pierced the gullet and worked through 

 the skin of the neck. The skin had healed up j)erfectly 

 around the wood, but inside the gullet was also found the 

 skull of a Lesser Black-backed Gull, into which the stake had 

 been thrust. It appears probable that this unattractive morsel 

 had been fastened by the stake as a bait to some trap. It is 

 not very unusual to find a Gull with a fish-hook worked through 

 the mandible. I saw a young Herring-Gull shot last November 

 in this predicament, the bird presenting a curious appearance 

 on the wing, owing to the presence of some eighty yards of 



