86 Notice of the Arrival of Birds of Passage at Carlisle. 



the coast not far from Allonby; the other m the vicinity of 

 Bowness. 



l-te. Great Snipe {Scolopax major). — In the month of Sep- 

 tember two great snipes were killed in this district; a female 

 about the 20th, in the neighbourhood of Bewcastle, and a very 

 fine male on the 24th, not far from Dalston, which weighed, 

 fully eight ounces and a quarter, the female barely seven ounces 

 and a half, but it was unfortunately much mutilated with the 

 shot. Both were excessively fat, and completely enveloped 

 with a layer of it below the skin, which in some parts exceeded 

 two tenths of an inch in thickness. 



There was not the least difference in their dimensions ; — 

 length 13 inches: tarsi 1^ inch; bill 2^*^^ inches. The latter 

 appears to be subject to considerable variation with respect 

 to length. Montagu, in his Ornithological Dictionary, states 

 it to be four inches long: this, however, we suspect is a very 

 rare occurrence ; at least, the bills of those that have been ob- 

 tained in this country for the last lew years have seldom ex- 

 ceeded three inches, and generally speaking have measured 

 only two and a half. The very accurate description of this bird 

 given by Montagu in his Supplement is entirely omitted by 

 Professor Rennie in his edition, which is the more to be re- 

 gretted, as it corrected an error Montagu had made in the 

 Ornithological Dictionary, relative to the colour of the legs, 

 which are there said to be black. 



The Great Snipe, until recently, was considered to be one 

 of our rarest occasional visitants; but specimens we have rea- 

 son to believe are now annually obtained in Norfolk and some 

 of the adjoining counties. The reader will find some interesting 

 remai'ks upon the British Snipes, in the second and third vo- 

 lumes of the Magazine of Natural History, pp. 143 and 27. 



151. Bar-tailed Godxoit {Liviosa riifa). — A specimen of tliis 

 bird was shot on the coast in the neighbourhood of Bowness 

 in October. 



The Bar-tailed Godwit is seldom met with in this district ; 

 indeed it may be considered a rare bird in this neighbour- 

 hood. 



186. Cotmntm Shovclcr (Spathnlea clypcata). — A male and 

 two female Shovelers have been recently met with in this vici- 

 nity; the former on Brugh Marsh on the 15th of December, 

 the latter near Sebergham in the middle of September. The 

 Shoveler is a very rare bird in this part of the county. 



235. Common Tern. — We saw this species in Solway Firth 

 nearly three weeks earlier than it has hitherto been noticed 

 by us. 



Several were seen in the same locality in the beginning of 

 October. 



Mctcoro- 



