The Zoologist — December, 1866. 523 



• Crossbills at Henley-on-Thames.— On the 12tli of last August a flight of from forty 

 lo fifty crossbills {Loxia curvirostra) visited the grounds of Park Place, near here ; they 

 were seen about for two or three days, and then took their departure. The keeper, 

 Mr. Hitchcock, shot three, but, his gun being loaded with large shot, they were so 

 mutilated as to be quite unfit for mounting. They were in the intermediate or 

 yellowish green state of plumage. — Charles E. Stiibbs ; Post Office, Henley-on- 

 Thames. 



Bee-eater in Jersey. — For the last ten days we had noticed a bird quite foreign to us, 

 flying with the rapidity of a swallow, and poising at limes with its tail extended like a 

 hawk: its movements were very quick, and its gorgeous plumage in the sun came out 

 very brilliant. Yesterday we had the good luck to shoot the bird. It is now being 

 stuffed by Mr. Charlotte, birdstuffer. — Jersey, October 13, 1866.— i^rom the ' Field ' 

 Newspaper. 



Late stay of Martins. — A great many martins and some swallows are still here. 

 I saw thirty or forty martins flying together this morning. — Henry Doubleday ; 

 Epping, October 15, 1866. 



Sivallow Stones. — I met last summer, in Brittany, with a curious fact relating 

 to the habits of the common house swallow, which may interest some of your readers. 

 In Brittany there exists a wide-spread belief among the peasantry that certain stones 

 found in swallows' nests are sovereign cures for certain diseases of the eye. I think 

 the same notion holds in many other parts of France, and also in some of our English 

 counties. These stones are held in high estimation, and the happy possessor usually 

 lets them on hire at a sous or so a day. Now 1 had the good fortune to see some of 

 these "swallow-stones," and to examine them. I found them to be the hard polished 

 calcareous opercula of some species of Turbo, and although their worn state precludes 

 the idea of identifying the species, yet I am confident that they belong to no European 

 Turbo. The largest I have seen was three-eighths of an inch long and one-fourth of an 

 inch broad ; one side is flat, or nearly so, and the other is convex, more or less so in 

 different specimens. Their peculiar shape enables one to push them under the eye-lid 

 across the eye-ball, and thus they remove any eye-lash or other foreign substance 

 which may have got in one's eye; further than this they have no curing power: the 

 peasants, however, believe they are omnipotent. The presence of these opercula in 

 swallows' nests is very curious, and leads one to suppose that they must have been 

 brought there from some distant shore in the swallow's stomach. If so they must have 

 inhabited the poor bird for a considerable time, and proved a great nuisance to it. 

 Some of your correspondents may perhaps find a better explanation of the above fact. — 

 G. A. Leboitr ; Fez Lodge, Addison Crescent, W., October 19, 1866. 



Late stay of the Swift. — A correspondent, writing from Southsea, says that great 

 numbers of swifts colhcted in that neighbourhood during the first week in October, 

 and principally took their departure in a south-westerly direction on Sunday, the 7ih. 

 — Edward Ntivman. 



Whitebellied Swift in the Western Islands of Ireland.— I have mentioned the 

 occurrence of this swift (Zool. S. S. 456) as at Achill Island ; it should have been at 

 Arran Island, off the Galway coast. This swift has also been observed at Achill. — 

 Harry Blake-Knox. 



Creamco loured Courser at Sandwich. — A specimen of this very rare bird was shot 

 near Sandwich, by a man who knew nothing about its rarity, aud allowed it to spoil: 



