Birds. 9493 



Blackth rooted Diver (Colymbus arcticus). — On the 13th of January, 

 1865, Mr. Jones, of Bridlington Quay, sent me a fine old female 

 specimen of this scarce diver, in the flesh. He shot it on Bridlington 

 Bay so shortly before sending it off to me, that I positively received it 

 within an hour of its death : I have never seen a finer specimen. On 

 dissection, the various sizes of the ova indicated both its full maturity 

 and the fact of its having bred, which suppositions the perfect and 

 glossy plumage would tend to sustain. 1 have in my collection a fine 

 old male of this species, which was shot on our own Kiver Hull, not 

 far from Beverley, about twelve years ago : its throat is mottled with 

 white feathers, interspersed, lik^ snow-flakes, amongst the black. The 

 bird was shot by Joseph Owen, of Beverley, and is the only instance 

 I have ever heard of, or known, of the occurrence of the blackthroated 

 diver on the River Hull or any other stream near Beverley. 



Great Blackbacked Gull (Larus marinns). — On the evening of the 

 I7th of January, Henry Cassell, of Grove Hill, near Beverley, brought 

 me a splendid specimen of this fine gull : he had shot it on the after- 

 noon of the same day, as it sailed leisurely over his garden on the 

 bank of the River Hull. Dissection proved it to be an old male : its 

 stomach contained the entrails of some animal about the size of a hare 

 or rabbit, and, as they were partially decomposed, I have little doubt 

 that the gull had been feasting upon the remians of one of these 

 animals it had found dead. The bird was alone when shot. I never 

 knew the great blackbacked gull visit our river before, either in its 

 mature or immature plumage : they are tolerably abundant on the 

 east coast of Yorkshire, and are occasionally shot both at Bridlington 

 and Filey ; but even on the coast they are not so often seen as the 

 lesser blackbacked gull. The largest gull I had seen, up to this date, 

 shot on our river, was an immature specimen of the herring gull, shot 

 during the autumn of 1864, by Mr. F. Boyes, of Beverley. Vast flocks 

 of gulls visit the wolds and carrs of this Riding : I have seen many 

 hundreds together hunting for worms on our own beautiful common, 

 Westwood. Numbers, too, on the wolds following the plough, after 

 the manner of rooks, eagerly feeding on the worms and grubs turned 

 up by the share on the new fallows. But these gulls are invariably 

 either the common gull [Larus canus), the kittiwake gull (Z. tridac- 

 tylus), or the blackheaded gull [L. ridibundus). The great blackbacked 

 gull I have never before met with nearer to Beverley than the eastern 

 coast of Yorkshire. 



LeaclCs Petrel (Thalassidroma Leachii). — In the January number 

 of the ' Zoologist' (Zool. 9419) I find recorded, by Mr. J. H. Gurney, 



