285 METEOROLOGY OF THE MIDLANDS. 



nautical miles. It came up from W.S.W., and was strictly cyclonic iu 

 character, giving north-easterly gales on its north-west side in Scot- 

 land, and south-westerly on its south-east side in central England, 

 the wind veering and backing respectively as the storm centre passed 

 over towards north-east. Immense damage was done, chiefly to 

 timber, throughout the Midlands; and at Burton-on-Trent no such 

 disastrous gale can be remembered. Between the 19th and 26th 

 another wide main depression covered the British Isles, accompanied 

 by fresh gales. The month was cold on the whole, temperature' being 

 3£ degrees below the average at Orleton and Henley-in-Arden. Dura- 

 tion of sunshine at Hodsock, 107.0 hours. Mean sea temperature at 

 Scarborough, 50.6. 



— ■•- — 



Naturalists' Diaby— (p. 266). — The proposed diary will not be 

 issued for next year, the number of applications for it being insuffi- 

 cient to justify its publication. 



Stormy Petrel. — We lately had a visit from a Stormy Petrel, 

 but it did not live long after its capture. It has been mounted, and is 

 now in the possession of Mr. Robert Drane, F.L.S., a chemist in the 

 town. — W. Adams, Cardiff. 



2Egialitis Cukonicus (Gmelin) Little Ringed Plover. — In the 

 report of the meeting of the Nottingham Working Mens' Naturalists' 

 Society, held on October 3rd, published in the "Midland Naturalist" 

 for this month (p. 271), it is stated that there was exhibited " one 

 specimen of the Little Ringed Plover {Gharadrius minor), shot at 

 Gelding, Notts." Mr. Harting in his valuable " Handbook of British 

 Birds " (1872), records less than a score of specimens of this little bird 

 as having been killed iu Great Britain. I have not seen the Notting- 

 hamshire bird recorded elsewhere, and I am sure Ornithologists would 

 feel obliged to Mr. Hazard if he would kindly publish further particu- 

 lars of this interesting occurrence. — Oliver V. Aplin, Banbury, Oxon, 

 November, 1681. 



Alpine Chough. — On the supposed occurrence of the Alpine 

 Chough in a wild state near Banbury, Oxon. : — In the June number of 

 the "Midland Naturalist " (p. 13'J), I recorded what I then believed 

 to be a specimen of the Cornish Chough, Pyrrhocorax Graculus 

 (Linnaeus), remarking that it appeared to be immature, the legs being 

 orange and the bill yellow, and that the latter seemed unusually short. 

 On reading the note at a meeting of the Natural History Society here, 

 I stated that I was not sure that the bird was not of a much rarer 

 species, and to my record of it in the " Zoologist " the Editor 

 appended a note that it was "possibly an Alpine Chough escaped from 

 confinement." I can now state that from an examination of a 

 specimen in the Oxford museum, and a reference to the plate in Mr. 

 Dresser's work on the "Birds of Europe," my suspicions are con- 

 firmed, and I have little doubt that the bird killed in Broughton Park 

 in April last is the Alpine species Pyrrhocorax alpinus, Koch. — a bird 

 which has not, I believe, hitherto been recorded in a truly wild state 

 in Great Britain. With regard to the present specimen having escaped 

 from captivity, I may say that the plumage was clean, and not rubbed 

 in the least, nor did the food found in the stomach (cf. [>• 139,) point 

 to its having been caged at any very recent period. Possibly though, 

 it was an escaped bird, and had been at liberty long enough to lose 

 the marks of confinement.— Oliver V. Aplin, Banbury, Oxon., 

 November, 1881. 



