4000 The Zoologist — May, 1874. 



the poor bird could manage to eat at all ; perhaps it was fed by its com- 

 panions. — H. Durnford; March 20, 1874. 



[I think the solution of this malformation must be found in the fact that 

 a shot had penetrated the mandible, cutting it sufficiently to cause it to hang 

 downwards, but not sufficiently to cause a complete separation. I have 

 more than once seen birds' beaks injured in this way. I must forbear 

 expressing any opinion on Mr. Durnford's theory that a new upper mandible 

 would have been eventually formed and the injured portion have dropped 

 off. I can scarcely accept the theory that the poor bird was fed by its 

 companions. — Edward Newman.] 



Fishes killed at Scilly by the late Gale. — A proof, as unusual as it is 

 conclusive, of the violence of the gale of Monday, April 13th, is afforded by 

 the fact that large fish — conger, hake, ling, &c. — were tossed about in their 

 watery homes near the Islands of Scilly and at last flung by hundreds on 

 the rocks. This was more particularly noticed at St. Martin's, where our 

 informant saw them lying on the shore heaped one on the other. The sea 

 was seen from St. Mary's to break over the highest part of Bryher. The 

 fish near the Land's End fared as badly as at Scilly. Mr. John Symons, jun., 

 of Mayon House, picked up fish fully five hundred yards from Whitsand 

 Bay. Five of these presenting a strange appearance, Mr. Symons forwarded 

 them to Mr. T. Cornish, the honorary secretary of the Penzance Natural 

 History Society, who identified three of them as specimens of the small- 

 mouthed wrasse or rock cook [Crenilabrus exoletus). " They were," to quote 

 Mr. Cornish's words, " entirely bereft of the thick, strong scales which ought 

 to cover their whole body. The largest had received a heavy blow on the 

 mouth, which dislocated some of its maxillary arrangements and gave it a 

 somewhat bull-dog look." No wonder; for the sea and the winds must have 

 used the fish roughly to toss it on the shore and hurry it the third of a mile 

 over sands and up the cliffs. Two larger fish were the rare tadpole-fish, or 

 trifurcated bake, or lesser forked-beard (Raniceps trifurcatus), both very much 

 knocked about. Mr. Cornish adds : — " Both sorts of fish are denizens of 

 rocky bottoms, and the wrasse stick closely to sea-weed. Their presence in 

 the spot indicated speaks much for the weight of the gale which hove them 

 on shore." — G. M. 



Fishing Frog at St. Leonard's. — One of our trawlers has brought in two 

 fine specimens of Lophius piscatorius. One measured : — Length, four feet 

 five inches ; breadth from tip to tip of pectoral fins, three feet three inches; 

 gape one foot. The other was — Length, five feet ; breadth from tip to tip 

 of pectoral fins, three feet; gape, one foot. The dimensions of the two are 

 discrepant, probably this is sexual. Yarrell (vol. i. p. 2C9j, says, " The 



