454 MR. J. H. GURNET, JUN., ON THE ISLES ON SCILLY. 



" Cassaterides." Mr. Smart does not seem to have recognised 

 the abundance of the Purple Sandpiper (I.e. p. 171), which 

 we found very common, but no doubt in different seasons 

 their numbers vary, as is the case with so many birds everywhere. 

 We saw two Great Northern Divers in, apparently, complete 

 breeding plumage : they seem to linger on the coast of Cornwall, 

 for I remember, many summers ago, assisting in the chase of a pair 

 in Falmouth harbour, and one of them, which succumbed to the 

 aim of Mr. Howard Fox, was as perfect a bird as it was possible 

 to have. 



After leaving the islands, an hour was spent very pleasantly at 

 Penzance with the veteran naturalist Mr. Vingoe, now over eighty 

 years of age, who showed us the Yellowshank and American 

 Solitary Sandpiper, both shot by his son, of which he is, naturally, 

 very proud, the American Little Stint, Red-breasted Flycatcher,* 

 Cream-coloured Courser, etc. He also produced a lovely Grey 

 Phalarope in breeding plumage, adult, and far redder than 

 any British specimen I ever saw, which from the circumstance 

 of its having only one leg, is evidently the one shot at Par, 

 recorded by the late Mr. Eodd ('Zoologist,' 1878, p. 255). As 

 hardly any of Mr. Vingoe's rarities are labelled with date and 

 locality, it is exceedingly probable that when he is gone the value 

 of many of them, as local specimens, will perish with him. 

 Indeed he has already forgotten the dates of most, although 

 he can give the circumstances connected with their capture. 

 I advised him to write what little he knew on the stands of 

 all before it was too late, knowing that the identity of many a 

 rare British bird has been irrecoverably lost, at the death of its 

 owner, for want of this necessary precaution. 



* I bought this Flycatcher, but on returning home, found it was 

 unrecorded. Mr. Vingoe states that he received it from Scilly in the same 

 parcel with Mr. Rodd's, both in the flesh. That would be in October, 1863. 

 But Mr. Rodd's not having recorded it, if he knew about it, as Mr. Vingoe 

 says was the case, is very unaccountable ; and I am bound to add that 

 a gentleman, who is the best authority on the birds of the Scilly Islands, 

 suspects some mistake in the matter. 



