4226 The Zoologist — November, 1874. 



Turnstone. — August 22. I shot a young bird of the year at 

 Spurn ihis morning, and saw others. 



Godwil. — August 22. Small numbers of godwits on the mud-flats 

 to the north of Spurn. 



Curlew Sandpiper. — Common as this species was iu our marshes 

 and on the coast in the autumn of 1873, I have this season not 

 come across a single example. In the third week of September 

 I saw a flock on Sandy Island, close to Heligoland. 



Guillemot. — August 22. This morning guillemots were diving 

 and fishing close to the yacht; they kept so near the surface that 

 sometimes every motion of the bird was visible, and the direction 

 they took apparent both by the long lines and furrows made as 

 they rippled the oily surface of the sea in their rapid passage 

 underneath, as well as by the many little glittering fish jumping 

 from the water to escape capture. There were also numerous por- 

 poises very slowly and lazily rolling, often with the whole of their 

 backs exposed, as if desirous of feeling the full blaze of the morning 

 sun. Above the porpoises a flock of lesser blackbacked and herring 

 gulls screamed and fluttered, making rapid dashes at the fish, which 

 the uuwieldly sea-pigs drove to the surface. Sometimes a big fellow 

 made a sudden dash forward, furrowing and ploughing the water 

 with his snout, whilst scores of little frightened fish, like jets of 

 liquid silver, sprang to right and left to avoid him. The sea this 

 morning seemed alive with life, literally swarming with the fry of 

 various fish. 



John Cordeaux. 



Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnshire. 

 September 30, 1874. 



Ornithological Notes from Devonshire, Cornwall, 8; c. 

 By John Gatcombe, Esq. 



(Continued from S. S. 4105). 



May, 1874. 



5th. Found some gray wagtails breeding by the side of the river 

 Lydd, near Lifton, Devon, when one of the old birds feigned lame- 

 ness and used other artifices to entice us away from the vicinity of 

 the nest and young. 



11th. Visited the breeding-places of the herring gidls at Wera- 

 bury, on the coast a few miles from Plymoulli, where we observed 



