Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 451 



general this opening of the upper mandible extremity is 

 among shore- birds which have the required flexibility at the 

 end of the bill. I am, Sir, 



Yours &c., 



C. C. Trowbridge. 



Columbia College, New York City, 

 March 7, 1894. 



Sir,— About the 20th of March last (1894) a fowler of 

 Wexford Harbour sent me a Common Scoter (female) and 

 an adult pair of Long-tailed Ducks. The latter arc rare 

 winter visitors to the south of Ireland, and there is no recent 

 record of their occurrence in the County Wexford. 

 I am, Sir, 



Yours &c., 



G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton. 



Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 June 8, 1894. 



Sir, — I should be glad if you would allow me to warn 

 ornithologists in England that quite recently two Lesser 

 Kestrels {Falco cenchris) have escaped from captivity. They 

 were captured on board the S.S. ^ Irthington ^ off Malta 

 about the first week in April ; one got away at Blyth, North- 

 umberland, about the 27th April, the other escaped at Belfast 

 on the 5th May. Fearing they may be shot and recorded as 

 genuine occurrences, I would be glad if you could insert this 

 in the next issue of ' The Ibis.' 



I am, Sir, 



Yours &c., 



Robert Patterson. 

 Tilecote, Malone Park, Belfast, 

 June 12, 1894. 



Great Bustard Breeding in Captivity. — In * The Ibis ' for 

 July last (1893, p. 476) the Editor referred to the interesting 

 fact that Otis tarda had deposited two eggs in a nest in the 

 Zoological Society^s Gardens, Regent^s Park, and remarked 

 that, so far as was known, this was the first instance of the 

 Great Bustard breeding in captivity. I may remind him that 



