376 NATURAL SCIENCE. June, 1896. 



never read a prettier account of the doings of this sprite of our high- 

 land burns. It is brimful of realism. 



An interesting paper on Diomedea melanophrys in the Faeroe' Islands, 

 has been communicated by W. Eagle Clarke to a recent issue of the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society (vol. xiii., part i., pp. 91-114). 

 Ornithologists will recall the surprise which was felt when the news 

 arrived that an adult example of Diomedea melanophrys had been shot 

 in the Faeroe Islands in May, 1894. This bird, which met with its 

 fate at the hands of a native gunner on Myggenaes Holm, was well 

 known to the fishermen, who had seen it consorting with gannets 

 (Sula bassana) for no less a period than thirty-four years. It is a pity 

 that it met its unauthorised doom just before Mr. Harvie Brown and 

 Mr. Hugh Popham visited the locality in their yachts. Otherwise we 

 might have had the pleasure of reading some remarks upon its habits 

 by skilled naturalists. The bird was skinned and forwarded to 

 Mr. Knud Andersen, of Copenhagen. This gentleman has drawn up, 

 for the Physical Society, a careful statement of all the circumstances 

 connected with the occurrence of this unusual straggler to the North 

 Atlantic. The value of the present essay is enhanced by the trouble 

 which the writer has taken to make an abstract of our present know- 

 ledge of the distribution and breeding stations of this albatross. It 

 is embellished by a beautiful photograph of the Stacks of Myggennaes, 

 on which the bird was killed, reproduced from a negative secured by 

 that talented photographer, Mr. W. Norrie. 



The Chinch Bug. 



The " Chinch Bug," Blissus leucoptevus, Say, is an insect which 

 has long been notorious in the United States on account of its injuries 

 to corn-crops. As it was first found in the Atlantic States, it has 

 generally been . believed to have travelled westwards, as fresh land 

 came under cultivation by the farmer. In a recent discussion of its 

 distibution {J own. Cincinnati Nat. Hist. Soc, xviii., p. 141) Mr. F. M. 

 Webster brings forward evidence in support of the view that it has 

 travelled northwards from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, showing 

 that its near allies inhabit Tropical America, and that it may well 

 have subsisted on native grasses in the central States before the land 

 was cultivated. An original maritime home for the insect is inferred 

 from its habit of congregating in colonies at the roots of grasses in all 

 stages, and choosing slight elevations for its breeding-places. The 

 latter habit, presumably adopted for safety from floods or high tides, 

 is still practised in the centre of the continent. 



