4116 The Zoologist — August, 1874. 



In conclusion, we should state that we have been unable to 

 obtain any decisive opinion as to the possibly injurious effect of the 

 atmosphere of a large town upon an aquarium situated in its midst. 

 The managers at Southport and Vienna decidedly reply, "No!" 

 and the fact deserves notice that the Liverpool Aquarium is to be 

 built in the very centre of that great town. Finally, Mr. Lloyd's 

 opinion, to which the greatest weight unquestionably attaches, is 

 that no such injurious result need be feared. 



Birmingham, April 10, 1874. 



Birds in Cambridge Market. — The following is a list of the birds I have 

 met with in the Cambridge Market aud game-shops : — Kestrel, shorteared 

 and white owls, capercaillie, black and red grouse, ptarmigan, magpie, 

 kingfisher, stone curlew, peewit; golden, gray and ringed plovers; sander- 

 ling, oystercatcher, heron, curlew, blacktailed and bartailed god wits, common 

 and spotted redshanks, dunlin, knot, ruff and reeve, woodcock, common and 

 jack snipe, water rail, moorhen, coot; pinkfooted, whitefronted, bernicle and 

 brent geese; sheldrake, gadwall, pintail, shoveller, pochard, scaup, goldeneye, 

 common and velvet scoters, tufted aud longtailed ducks, redbreasted mer- 

 ganser, goosander, redthroated diver ; great crested, rednecked, eared and 

 little grebes ; lesser blackbacked, common, kittiwake and blackheaded gulls ; 

 razorbill and gaunet. I have only nieutioned those which have come 

 under my own observation, but of course other species may be met with 

 from time to time. On the 13th of June I saw in Mr. Baker's shop at 

 Cambridge a female woodcock which had beeu picked up on the 9th under 

 the telegraph-wires by the Trumpiugton Road. It was, although a female, 

 the smallest woodcock that either Mr. Baker or myself ever saw : he did 

 not weigh it before skinning, as it was in the most wretched condition. 

 The state of the plumage on the head showed it had been engaged in 

 incubation, but some lime since, as the young feathers were appearing. 

 I think a good many birds come to grief through these wires, as the first 

 intimation I had of the arrival of the cuckoo this year was being shown one 

 which had met with a fate similar to that of the woodcock. — Julian O. Tuck ; 

 Tostock House, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. 



Oruithological (laery. — Will any of your readers kindly help me to a 

 solution of the following problem : — Of two species of sea-fowl, which may 

 in other respects be regarded as identical in habits and exposed to similar 

 risks, the one lays a single egg every season and the other lays two eggs, 

 the young birds breeding in the following season. Determine the relations 

 in respect of duration of life, for the maintenance of a coustant ratio 



