THE ZooLocist—A pri, 1872. 3013 
and the death of so many is no doubt to be accounted for by the 
long continuance of south-westerly gales. I have on many occasions 
watched guillemots and razorbills for hours together, swimming, or 
rather floating, just outside the breakers during a heavy gale, when 
you would fancy that every wave must dash them on shore, but 
just as the crest of a huge thin wave is about to curl over, the poor 
birds dive through it and come up on the other side; but at length 
becoming quite exhausted, they are caught, rolled over, and dashed 
high up on the shore, where death shortly ends their sufferings. 
I am sorry to add that hundreds of razorbills, and kittiwakes too, 
have been shot at Plymouth within the last two months, during 
which we have had a succession of severe storms on the Devonshire 
coast, and many kittiwakes have been picked up exhausted in the 
streets. I have observed razorbills flying about a great deal of 
late, a very unusual thing for them to do in harbours during the 
winter: some of them have already assumed their full breeding 
plumage, and as early as the 7th of the present month I saw a shag 
in almost full nuptial dress of silky black and bronze-green, with 
a rather long crest on the head, but the tips of which had only just 
begun to curve. 
Gannet.—Feb. 12th. Gannets very plentiful in the channel: 
saw a fine one alive, which had been captured with a hook baited 
with a herring; three more were hooked, but two of the poor birds 
in their struggles broke the line before they could be hauled into 
the boat, and got off with (I am sorry to say) the hook fixed in the 
gullet. Several others have been taken in nets. 
Ring Dove.—On the 18th a rather strange circumstance happened 
in our garden: a ring dove alighted on an exposed branch of a low 
acacia tree, within a few feet of a road where people were constantly 
passing. I watched it with a telescope from my window fora quarter 
of an hour, when it flew off across the water to the woods of Mount 
Edgeumbe. Perhaps it might have been frightened by a hawk, for 
it certainly was a very public place for such a wild bird to take 
refuge. It remained perfectly motionless all the time it was on the 
branch. 
Feb. 19th. A great number of curlews, dunlins, ring dotterels 
and gulls feeding on the West Mud, with a heron in their midst 
stalking gravely about in the shallow pools, stabbing at small fish, 
crabs, or perhaps shrimps, in all directions. 
Feb. 20th. Skylarks, missel thrushes, and chaffinches singing. 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. VII. T 
