Tue ZooLocist—FEBRuvARY, 1872. 2945 
can find no trace of it. Mr. Telfer could have made no mistake in the 
species, for, besides being a fair ornithologist, he had just returned, in 1864, to 
England from Corfu, where the pratincole is abundant, and where he had 
procured and skinned many of these birds—H. W. Feilden ; Aldershot, 
November 25, 1871. 
Scent of Wood Sandpiper.—I have not observed that attention has been 
drawn to the circumstanee that the wood sandpiper has a peculiar musky 
smell, similar to that possessed by the green sandpiper. In the specimen 
of the former species, which I obtained at Braunton Burrows, as recorded 
in the November number of the ‘ Zoologist,’ this odour is very apparent, 
and is as strong as I have noticed in any specimen of the green sandpiper 
that has come under my notice.—Mareus S. C. Rickards; 37, Cornwallis 
Crescent, Clifton, December 16, 1871. 
Greenshanks, &., near Newton.—I noticed a great many birds yesterday 
on the banks of the Teign. Shortly after leaving Newton, in a sandy 
ditch within half a gun shot of the railway, a pair of greenshanks were 
rapidly running to and fro in the shallow water, on the look-out for food. 
They hardly took any notice of the train as it passed, one merely flying 
across the pool, where it pitched and commenced to feed as eagerly as before. 
I suspect they had but just arrived from the north. Cormorants were very 
numerous. I have travelled between Newton and Teignmouth scores of 
times, but never saw so many as I did on this occasion. On one small spit 
of sand, which was not quite covered by the tide, there were no less than 
seven sitting upright with outstretched wings, and we passed at least fifty 
more before we reached Teignmouth. The wind was fresh from the south- 
east, with a short lopping sea on outside the mouth of the harbour, and this 
may have driven the birds into the river. Most of them, by their size and 
plumage, were apparently birds of the year. Besides these, herring and 
blackheaded gulls were plentiful, but the tide being nearly high, there was 
no mud or sand uncovered for the smaller shore birds, and the only species 
I observed was the common sandpiper, three of which flew off some stones 
close to the railway-bank as the train went by. Near Starcross gulls 
were again numerous, and I believe I saw another pair of greenshanks, but 
they were too far off to make out with certainty.—Gervase F'. Mathew ; 
September 27, 1871. 
Spotted Crake near Clifton —On the 27th of October, a birdstuffer here 
showed me (in the flesh) a specimen of the spotted crake, which had been 
picked up on the Bristol and Exeter Railway, near this city, a day or two 
previously, and which, from a large scalp wound on the top of its head, had 
evidently met its death by flying, no doubt (and probably in the course of 
its autumnal migration) in the night time against the telegraph wires. On 
the 30th of October I shot a purple sandpiper, in full winter plumage, on 
the banks of the Severn, near the New Passage. It was alone at the time, 
