3442 The Zoologist — March, 1873. 



the bird had not been shot,, but had either struck itself or been 

 struck on the head with some blunt instrument. About the same 

 time a coast-guard gave me an adult of this species which he found 

 dead on the beach : it was choked by a gurnard ; the spines of the 

 fish were so fast in the gullet that they broke off when it was 

 pulled out. 



Little Auk, %c. — Dec. 20. Found a little auk dead on the beach 

 in good condition : it had not been shot. I also obtained an Ice- 

 land gull, an adult male: on one of the watchers seeing it, he said 

 that he had shot a bird, the day before, exactly the same, but much 

 larger — no doubt a glaucous gull ; he had given it to a friend who 

 he said had "bothered him a long time for a gull" — most likely to 

 deck some lady's bonnet. Many of our best sea-birds meet a like 

 fate, and are never heard of, making the species appear move rare 

 than they really are. Very few of the shore-shooters on this coast 

 know, or care to know, one gull from another: they will sit for 

 hours, generally on their heels, behind rocks, with blunderbusses 

 charged one-fourth the length of the barrel, and often shoot a good 

 many. They tell me that they pluck, or more commonly clip, the 

 feathers off to make pillows, &c. ; and some of them declare that 

 the flesh of gulls is " varry gud ta eat." 



Great Btackbacked Gull. — Jan. 3. I got three great black- 

 backed gulls, one adult and two immature. 



John Sclater. 



Castle Eden, Durbam, January 18, 1873. 



Ornithological Notes from Devon and Cornwall. 

 By John Gatcombe, Esq. 



December, 1872. 



Northern Diver, Blackjacked Gulls and Shag. — December 1. 

 Northern divers and a large number of gulls, including both 

 greater and lesser blackbacked, in the harbour. The shag or green 

 cormorant has been, and is now, exceedingly numerous, owing to 

 the long- continued gales, diving in the surf among the rocks, 

 pursuing and searching for its prey even under the sea-weed with 

 which they are covered ; indeed it seems quite wonderful how it 

 can do so without injury. Not long since I saw a shag actually 

 dashed on a rock, over which it scrambled on its side and belly in 



