42 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



from Abyssinia besides the three following, all killed in 

 England. One immature example, much resembling the 

 Yarmouth bird, preserved in the Canterbury museum, 

 and killed in Kent ; a young male, shot at Selsea, in the 

 Chichester museum ; and a female, most probably adult, 

 but not so dark as the Yarmouth bird in Mr. Newcome's 

 collection, shot by himself some years back, from a nest 

 in Feltwell sedge-fen, in this county. To these last I 

 can also add two other British killed specimens of this 

 melanite type; one, as I am informed by Mr. Alfred 

 Newton, a male, shot at North Chapel, near Petworth, 

 Sussex, in either 1855 or the following year, now in 

 the possession of Mr. Knox (author of the " Birds of 

 Sussex"), who examined it in company with the late Mr. 

 Yarrell, and the other, an adult female, killed at Yarmouth 

 in July, 1855, which I recently discovered in the Dennis 

 collection at the Bury museum. "Vieillot (writes Mr. 

 Gurney) made this form a distinct species under the 

 name of Circus ater ( e Diet. Hist. Nat.' iv., p. 459) ; 

 but in the 'Bevue de Zool.' for 1850, p. 82, is a note 

 by Dr. Pucheran, intended to shew that it is only a 

 variety of C. cineraceus. Prince Bonaparte also con- 

 firms this view in p. 492 of the same volume, and I have 

 no doubt that it is merely a variety, though I suspect 

 it may be an hereditary one from so many instances of 

 it occurring." 



SCOPS ALDROVANDI, Bonaparte. 

 SCOPS EARED OWL. 



This rare little Owl is recorded by various local 

 authors to have been killed in Norfolk in three or four 

 instances. According to Messrs. Gurney and Fisher it 

 has occurred twice in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth, 



