Birds. 7507 



schist, on narrow ledges of white, gleaming trachyte, and on the black, frowning, 

 weather-stained, lichen. spotted masses which overhang the little bays, are seen blue 

 rock pigeons {Columba livia) walking about, cooing, bowing to each other, and 

 daintily preening their feathers. One is quietly percheil on a slender graceful spray, 

 which waves in the wind from one of the fissures half way down a perpendicular wall 

 of rock of many hundred feet ; others near the top seem to be paying each other polite 

 attentions on green carpets fragrant with the scent of wild blossoming thyme. 

 Hundreds fly out from the side of the cliff on the report of a gun, and after a short 

 excursion return again to the security of their rocky homes. A brown owl maintains 

 her "solitary reign" in the secret recesses; numbers of pretty hoopoes are flitting 

 about in their peculiar jaunty manner, raising and depressing their crests and archly 

 coquetting one with another. Large kites and two species of hawks sail, poised on 

 outspread wings, high above the island ; linnets utter their short pleasing notes as 

 they rise in clouds; and a quail is shot in the high grass at the summit. The little 

 bays which indent the base of the island are paved with smooth rounded pebbles of 

 felspar and transparent quartz, and are peaceful enough to bathe in, but on the 

 weather-side the surf thunders against the rough barnacle-clad boulders, and the war 

 of flint and water is incessant. — Arthur Adams. 



Occurrence of the Bustard near York. — I have this day purchased a fine specimen of 

 the bustard, shot yesterday morning, February 22, at Rufi'orth, near York : it weighed 

 10 tbs. 12 oz. — David Graham. There is no ground for doubting that this was a 

 genuine wild bird: I happened to be present when the farmer who shot it brought it 

 into Mr. Graham's shop in his butler basket: it is going to our Museum, having been 

 purchased by subscription and presented to the Rudston collection. — Thomas Henry 

 Allis. The following, from a local paper, has been kindly communicated by the 

 Eev. R. Bryan Cooke : — " Mr. Graham, of Market Street, who had preserved the great 

 bustard presented to the Society, gave a short account of the bird. He stated that it 

 was shot on the 22nd of February, at Rufforth, near York, by a man of the name of 

 Rogers. When Mr. W. H. R. Read saw the bird he was anxious that it should be 

 preserved and presented to the Society. This particular species of bustard was known 

 as the Otis l^rda, but was now extinct in this country, although half a century ago it 

 was found upon the Wolds of Yorkshire. There were two other species already in 

 the Museum, — namely, the little bustard {Otis letrax) and Macqueen's bustard {Otis 

 Macqueenii), — and, with the Otis tarda, the Society would possess three valuable and 

 well-authenticated specimens of the genus Otis. The specimen he had just preserved 

 was an old female bird, which, singularly enough, had about it all the markings of 

 the male bustard, thus rendering it the more remarkable." 



Occurrence of the Ringed Plover at Birminghain. — A male specimen of the ringed 

 plover {Charadrius hiaticula) was shot on the 2nd of April, at Soho Pool — a pool 

 situated within two miles of the centre of the town. As this bird was shot so far from 

 the usual habitat of the species, and as I am not aware that it has ever occurred 

 before in this neighbourhood I think that the fact may be worth recording. — Henry 

 Buckley ; Church Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham. 



Common Crane (Grus cinerea) at Swatow. — Swatow, lately opened to foreign trade, 

 is the name applied to a harbour in the north sea-corner of the province of Kwangtung, 

 almost bordering on that of Foo-kien, and some 90 miles south of Amoy. The foreign 

 settlement is clustered on a small island known as Double Island, at the mouth of the 

 fine river Han, which runs up past the village of Swatow, situated on its left bank 



