The Zoologist— July, 1874. 4065 



the tidal marshes on the coast during the night, and a clever 

 trapper will then often secure five or six couples. 



Shieldrake. — March 13. Observed several pairs on the Flintshire 

 coast to-day : they repair to the sandhills about this time. 



Little Grehe. — January 19. My brother, whilst out after ducks 

 this morning, observed a little grebe floating on its back in the 

 water, which, on a nearer examination, proved to have been choked 

 by a " miller's-thumb," which the bird had endeavoured to swallow 

 head first, and had become firmly fixed in its jaws. The fish was 

 full of spawn. 



Gulls. — March 13. Hundreds of herring gulls on the sandy 

 flats on the Flintshire coast, mostly fine adult birds, which breed 

 numerously on the rocks some thirty miles west of Mostyn ; also 

 observed many common gulls, and blackheaded with full black 

 hoods. 



^ H. DURNFORD. 



Waterloo, Liverpool, May 4, 1874:. 



Ornithological Notes from Torquay. By Baron A. von Hugel. 



(Concluded from Zool. S. S. 3909.) 



Blackheaded Gulls. — Noticed several specimens of Larus ridi- 

 bundus on the 15th of February which had assumed the full spring 

 plumage. They were flying in a large flock of other gulls off the 

 mouth of the Torquay Harbour, their dark heads making them very 

 conspicuous, even at a considerable distance. 



Common Buzzard. — A specimen killed at Haccomb, near 

 Newton, on the 23rd of February. This is the second bird of this 

 species shot in that locality this year (Zool. S. S. 3907). 



Crested Tit. — Noticed one of these birds in Chelston Lane on 

 the '26th of March, which allowed of such a close approach that 

 I nearly succeeded in touching it with my walking-stick. Parus 

 cristatus has, I believe, never before been recorded from Devon- 

 shire, and only few instances of its occurrence in any part of 

 England have been noticed. 



Swallow. — The swallows made their first appearance on the 13lh 

 of April, on which day I noticed a pair; but they were seen in 

 numbers only a week later. 



Sand Martin. — The first sand martins I observed on the 20th of 



