Birds. 9321 
night it got into the fire, and, before it could extricate itself, sustained 
_ such severe injury that it died very shortly afterwards. Another owl 
of the same species was kept for several months, but it died after eating 
a small piece of salt fish. 
Henry L. Saxsy. 
Baltasound, Shetland, August 31, 1864. 
Other Notes on the Birds which breed upon Walney and adjacent 
Islands. By H. Ecroyp Smiru, Esq. 
Havine perused with great interest the animated description by 
Mr. Harting (Zool. 9156) of his visit to Walney during the past 
breeding season, though no professed ornithologist, I cannot refrain 
from offering a record of my own experience during two similar visits 
to this interesting locality, showing not only remarkable discrepancies 
in the habits of some of the breeders in different seasons, but, more 
extraordinary still, between Mr. Harting’s observations and my own, 
only two or three days having elapsed between that gentleman’s visit 
and my second and latest. 
Hoping to find at least a few species of sea-fowl breeding upon the 
smaller sandy islands off the Furness coast, accompanied by a young 
neighbour, I started from Barrow (reached over-night) early in the 
morning of the 3rd of June last for Foulney, first following the railway 
towards Peel for a mile, and thence along shore to Roe Island, insulated 
no longer, the railway embankment joining it to the main. A few ring 
dotterells were flying about, but no eggs were noticed in our haste for 
better sport on Foulney, access to which, the tide being up, could only 
be obtained by boat; and from the new pier we hailed a small cobble, 
somewhat disheartened, however, by a coast-guard here all but offering ~ 
us a sovereign apiece for the eggs we should obtain. 
Nearing Foulney several flocks of birds rose from its further side, 
startled, as we soon found, by the approach of a shooting party, and 
subsequently stragglers only were seen, chiefly oystercatchers, two of 
which we saw brought down, destined for specimens in a local museum. 
Greatly disappointed to find the whole surface of the island a dead 
level, without place of hiding or even partial seclusion for incubation, 
we returned to the strand, and made the circuit of the place without 
finding a single egg, and, the tide now permitting, regained Roe, by 
traversing Little Foulney, a huge bank of sand crowned by pebbles, 
but these being covered at high water cannot be available for incuba- 
tion. Formerly, according to authentic report, and even to within the 
VOL. XXII. 3.N 
