878 The Zoologist — August, 1867. 



a bird would cross America and appear on our east coast; but is it not likely that it 

 might be an escaped bird, brought over by some sailor lo the port of Grangemouth or 

 some other? Sailors are often much given to bringing home curiosities. I do not 

 think that had Mr. Beckwith seen the bird as closely as we did, he would un- 

 hesitatingly have pronounced the yellow to be the effect of colouring matter. My 

 friend Mr. Young, however, was much more positive that it was not such than I was. 

 I may further mention that I did not observe the " naked skin around and behind the 

 eyes, which is bright yellow," mentioned by Professor Newton (S. S. 757) as being 

 present in Pica Nuttalli. The Professor again says, however, that in his figure of the 

 bird in the 'Atlas' there is no appearance of this bare yellow skin round the eye. 

 I am afraid that no satisfactory conclusion can now be arrived at with respect to this 

 yellow-billed magpie. — John A. Harvie Brown. 



Scaup Duck breeding in Britain. — In the 'Zoologist' for July (S. S. 811) your 

 correspondent Mr. Cordeaux asks if there is any well-authenticated instance of the 

 scaup remaining and breeding in Great Britain. I quote the following from 

 Mr. Selby's "List of the Birds inhabiting the County of Sutherland," as observed by 

 him when visiting that county in 18.54 :—" Scaup Pochard (Fuligula marita). A single 

 female was shot by Sir William Jardine in a small loch between Loch Hope and 

 Eriboll: she was attended by a young one, which unfortunately escaped among the 

 reeds. This is the first instance of its breeding in Britain having been ascertained 

 that I am aware of." — Id. 



Puffins on the Norfolk Coast. — An immature female of the puffin was shut about 

 the 22nd of March on the beach near Bceston Regis. On the 19th instant an adult 

 female was picked up dead on the beach in the same locality. The occurrence of the 

 puffin is rather unusual at this season of the year on the Norfolk coast, and therefore I 

 think it had probably been driven from the northern coast, and fell exhausted and was 

 washed ashore: I could find no indication of any wounds or injury when skinning the 

 bird, although I closely examined it. — T. E. Gunn. 



Scyllarus arctus on the North Coast of Cornwall. — You can nole the occurrence 

 of Scyllarus arctus at Sennen Cove, a white-sand (i.e. gulf-stream) bay on the north 

 coast of Cornwall, just east of Land's End. The specimen is a female in berry, but 

 was dead when brought to me. — Thomas Cornish; Penzance, July 8, 1867. 



Nole on the Voracity of the Borncan Crocodile. — Several years since the late 

 Captain Piichard Glasspoole presented to the Norwich Museum a fine skull of the 

 above-mentioned crocodile (Crocodilus biporcalus of Cuvier), accompanied by the 

 following account, which I believe has never been published, and which therefore 

 appears to me, though not of recent date, to be worthy of record in the pages of the 

 'Zoologist': — "The formidable animal from which this head was taken measured 

 nearly thirty feet in length, and was caught, iu the year 1827, in the river Benja- 

 Massa, in Borneo, where it had long been a terror to the neighbourhood. A few weeks 

 previous lo its capture it attacked two men on a raft, father and son : it caught the 

 son by the arm and took him under water, the father jumped into the river to rescue 

 him when the animal left the son and devoured the father : the son leached the shore 

 much injured. It soon afterwards upset a canoe and devoured the chief of a Malay 



