The Zoologist— August, 1R70. 22G1 



one had a small hole in it, eTidently made by the harrier's beak; the other, which 

 I have blown, is quite perfect. Is ii usual for the harriers to swallow the eggs whole, 

 without tapping them f The eggs were in ihe stomach, not the crop. — B. Bates ; 

 Eastbourne. 



Black Montagus Harriers. — A black variety of Montagu's harrier would seem to 

 be not uncommon in Africa and Southern Europe, but does not appear to have been 

 observed anywhere in Asia, where the species is more or less abundant. Mr. Howard 

 Saunders mentions obtaining "two very black males of Circus cineraceus" near 

 Seville (' Ibis,' 1869, p. 400). There is a very fine black male of this species, having 

 a roseate gloss upon its upper parts, in the Canterbury Museum, shot near that city ; 

 and in the Dover Museum I observed another, and was told by the conservator iheie 

 that he had seen five or six like it in the course of his experience. I am unaware 

 that a similar melanous variety has been observed of either of the gray harriers, 

 C. cyaneus and C. Sykesi. All three are common in India, but the second only in its 

 northern provinces. — Field. 



Black Montagu's Harriers. — With reference to the black Montagu's harriers, 

 I find that Mr. E. L. Layard, in his work entitled ' The Birds of South Africa' (p. 35), 

 introduces and describes a Circus maurus, Temminck (C. ater. Gray, nee Vieillot), but 

 mentions that " by some writers this species is thought to be a black variety of 

 C. cineraceus," which to my apprehension is undoubtedly the case. He states that 

 "This very handsome harrier is not at all uncommon in the neighbourhood of Cape 

 Town, and is generally seen in pairs, beating the bushes for prey, and quartering the 

 ground with the regularity of a pointer dog;" but he does not mention any diversity 

 in the plumage of the sexes or of the young. "After a few heavy flaps with its 

 wings," he adds, " it sails along with its pinions elevated, swaying to and fro like a 

 clock-pendulum ; suddenly it checks itself, lets fall a leg, clutches up a cowering lark 

 or unsuspecting jerboa" (gerbelle rat?), "and flies away with it to the nearest 

 termite heap, on which it perches and commences its repast. If accompanied by its 

 mate, a shrill stridulous cry soon brings it to its side, and the dainty morsel is shared 

 between them. It breeds among reeds, making a thick heavy nest on any elevated 

 root that may lift it above the water. The eggs are said to be white." The ash- 

 coloured C. cineraceus is asserted by Mr. Layard to be rare in South Africa. 

 Another well-qualified observer, who is familiar with the Ornithology of the South of 

 Spain, assures me that C. cineraceus is there the commonest of the three gray 

 harriers, and that black individuals of it are by no means infrequent. It is 

 remarkable, therefore, that the latter do not appear to have been observed anywhere 

 in Asia, where the species is widely distributed. — Id. 



On the Southern range of the European Merlin. — Dr. Jerdon, in his work on the 

 ' Birds of India' (vol. i. p. 35), includes the merlin {Hypotriorchis JEsalon), and thus 

 refers to its range in India : — " The merlin appears a very rare visitant to the extreme 

 north-west frontier of India, during the cold season only. Dr. Adams observed it in 

 the north-west of the Punjab. Mr. Blyth, in his Catalogue, gives the north-west 

 Himalayas with a query." The Punjab is about the same latitude as Lower Egypt, 

 and, though giving the merlin a great easterly range, bears out Mr. Gurney's opinion in 

 the 'Zoologist' (S. S. 2221) as to its southern limit.— ii. W. Feilden; Chester Castle. 



Brunnich's Guillemot. — Is there any record of the occurrence of this species at the 

 Fame Islands!' I have an egg, taken there in June, so exactly resembling the figure 

 SECO.V'D SICRIRS — VOL. V, 2 S 



