The Zoologist— August, 1873. 3641 



were four or five of them, and about half-grown. One of the dogs, a 

 smooth terrier, immediately began eating them with the greatest relish, 

 and I only just managed to get to the place in time to snatch up the 

 last of them : after examining it I threw it to him and it went down 

 almost whole. On our way home he picked up and swallowed a mole. 

 I have often seen this dog eat half-grown and three-quarter grown rats 

 {M. decumanus), and water rats he will sometimes eat when quite full- 

 grown, but I never saw him appear to enjoy anything more than he did 

 the above-mentioned high-flavoured animals. A good many snipe, ducks, 

 peewits, redshanks, waterhens, &c., are now breeding in the immediate 

 vicinity of the stoat's nest, and most of them already have young ones 

 (some of the young ducks have begun to get their feathers) ; the havoc 

 these destructive animals make among them must be very great. — G. T. 

 Hope; Leiston, Suffolk. 



Criticisms on Ir. Durnford's "Ornithological Notes." — lu the July 

 number of the ' Zoologist' (S. S. 3601 — 3(306) are some ornithological notes 

 by Mr. H. Durnford. In more than one instance in which this gentleman 

 appears to have gained his information second-hand, I am inclined to hazard 

 the opinion that he has been misinformed ; if not, he gives me, and I dare 

 say some other readers of the ' Zoologist,' very startling information in 

 regard to the breeding of the Sandwich tern on the coast of Lancashire. 

 Quoting from the article referred to, I find the following : — " On my visit in 

 May I found the young had flown and left the neighbourhood with their 

 parents." Mr, Durnford informs us that he visited Walney Island on the 

 31st of May last; he does not give the date of the young Sandwich terns 

 leaving the Lancashire coast, but mentions it as an accomplished fact. 

 I do not think I, should be drawing an incorrect conclusion if IJ surmised 

 that these birds must have been hatched by the 1st of May, supposing that 

 they left -with their parents towards the end of the same month ; a period of 

 three weeks for laying and hatching the eggs, brings the date of deposition 

 of the first egg to the beginning of April ; the preUminaries of courtship, 

 selection of nesting-place and preparing nest occupies several days with the 

 terns, which lands us in March — a remarkable time for the appearance of 

 Sandwich terns on our coasts. A correspondent informed me this season 

 that a flock of over forty of these birds appeared towards the end of May at 

 the embouchure of a river on the east coast of Scotland, and he was in hopes 

 that they had come to breed in the neighbourhood, but by the second week 

 in June they had all betaken themselves off, apparently dissatisfied with the 

 locality, to the great disappointment of my informant. I consider it highly 

 probable that the same occurrence took place on Walney Island, which 

 gave rise to the supposition that these terns had bred, reared their young, 



