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ON SOME SO-CALLED FISH-EATING BIEDS AT THE 

 INTEENATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION. 



By E. Cambridge Phillips, F.L.S., &c., &c. 



The extraordinary and almost un-looked for success which has attended the 

 Fisheries Exhibition, and the enormous numbers of the people of all classes that 

 have up to the present time visited it, must open our eyes to the fact that science 

 is at length steadily and surely viforking its way among the masses, who have been 

 only too anxious to enjoy that practically scientific treat which the International 

 Fisheries Exhibition has been and is still affording them. 



Among the various collections exhibited, those of the British piscivorous and 

 non-piscivorous birds particularly attracted my attention, and suggested the 

 remarks which follow, and which are here offered in the hope that they will 

 help to remove some of the misapprehension which prevails concerning the food 

 of our aquatic birds. This seems the more desirable since most of the birds which 

 are exhibited have been seen by thousands for the first time ; I allude particularly 

 to those of the working classes who have thronged the Exhibition. 



Let me therefore first notice as briefly as possible those fish-eating birds about 

 whose scaly diet there is no possible doubt ; and secondly, more fully, those birds 

 which, though exhibited as "fish-eating birds " are not in my humble opinion of 

 piscivorous habits, and which for this reason ought not to have been exhibited with 

 the others. Among the fish-eating birds, properly so-called, are some exceedingly 

 good specimens of the Fish Hawk or Osprey (Paiidion haliaetus). Herons in num- 

 bers, two of which I noticed stuffed as if killed by an eel tightly twisted in a knot 

 round the neck — an apt illustration of the biter bit. Kingfishers in abundance seem- 

 ed to have more attractions for most people than any other bird in the collection. 

 A Night Heron is labelled in the catalogrue as "very rare," although a White Stork, 

 Egret, and Spoonbill seem not to have been deemed worthy of such distinction. 



An excellent collection of Gulls, Grebes, and Divers (in many instances 

 beautifully preserved and set up, especially the young of the common coot) is 

 especially worthy of notice. Why the Darter (Plotus anhinga) should have been 

 exhibited in a British collection I am at a loss to imagine, it being a native of 

 America which has never yet found its way to this country. Perhaps one of the 

 most striking cases in the Exhibition is a pair of Lesser Terns (Sterna 7ninuta), 

 beautifully stuffed by Mr. T. E. Gunn, of Norwich, one bird hovering over its 

 eggs in the sand, arranged correctly in their so-called nest with the four ends 

 pointed together, the other bird dead by its nest with the blood on its breast, 

 having evidently been shot, affording an admirable illustration of the necessity of 

 protecting by legislation our sea-birds during the breeding season, the Cormorant 

 and Great Black-backed Gull perhaps alone excepted. Passing by numerous 

 waders which are classed as " fish-eating birds " such as the Greenshank, Red- 

 shank, Godwit, Stints, and Plovers of various kinds, but which properly speaking 

 can hardly be so designated, though I may give them the benefit of the doubt. 



