Additions to the Museum and Library. 185 



Flock op Puffins ( Fratercula arcticaj at Codford. 



On November 20th, 1893, six or seven " strange birds " were seen flying about 

 a field of swedes about 6ft. from the ground on Mr. Charles Notley's farm at 

 Codford St. Mary. In the course of the same day a puffin was picked up by a 

 beater in the course of a hare drive. It had apparently been shot by somebody 

 (or had it flown against a barbed wire?), but was still alive. Of course a puflSa 

 is a common enough bird at the right time of year in the right place, but it 

 seems odd to find, not merely a chance bird, but a small flock, on November 20th — 

 in the extreme south-west corner of Salisbury Plain— at the end of a three 

 days' gale, mostly from the N.N.E., but varying to N.W., when one remembers 

 that the birds are due to leave our shores in August. 



G. Ashley Dodd. 



Coal Mining in the Oxford Clay. 



" Under these strata [the coral rag] we have one called Clunch clay .... 

 with their laminse of coal [fossil wood]. The appearence of ' coal ' in this bed 

 has given rise to numerous trials, encouraged by ignorance or fraud. Among 

 these, I remember one at the expense of Sir Edward Bayntun and the Marquis 

 of Lansdowne, to the south-east of Tetherton. A much more rash adventure has, 

 I understand, been set on foot near Horsham, in Sussex, in the same bed, at the 

 expense of thirty thousand pounds." — The " Cliaracter of Moses," by the Rev* 

 Jos. Townsend, M.A., Rector of Pewsey, 1813, p. 127. 



" Sir Edward Bayntun was amused and flattered with the hope of an extensive 

 colliery ; and from time to time the workmen showed him infallible signs of 

 coal, till the subscription funds and his patience were exhausted, and then they 

 reluctantly departed." — Ibid, p. 427. 



3une 1st— Nobember 1st, X893. 



The Museum. 



Presented anonymously : — Seventeenth Century Wilts tokens .— 

 Freshford. John Curie Sen''. 

 Malmesbury. Edward Browne. 

 Wilton. Francis Wace. 



