The Zoologist — November, 1874. 4237 



and field vole, frogs, &c., were also caught in the pitfall. A lesser shrew 

 was caught on the heath on the ]4th of June. Ou the road between 

 Cromer and Felbrigge I saw what I believe to be an oared shrew and a 

 lesser shrew, but was unable to catch either. — Frank Norgate ; Norwich, 

 October 10, 1874. 



Birds in Gaerusey. — A female hoopoe, shot near Ronseval Vale parish, 

 was brought to me on the 26th of September, and on the 28th a snow 

 bunting, a female, shot in the new road at Cobo, of which last-named I have 

 only seen this one, for they are remarkably scarce with us this season. Our 

 " close time" expired on the 1st of October, and on the 5th a curlew sand- 

 piper and a common sandpiper, shot near Richmond Barracks, were brought 

 to me — the first specimen of the last-named species I have had since I have 

 been here. On the 7th a pair of gray phalaropes, male and female, were 

 shot off the Sallerie Battery : during the siege of Paris there were a great 

 number about with us, but since then I have not seen any but these two, 

 now in my possession. We have had a few terns about, but they were so 

 wild that there was no getting at them, and they have since all left us. 

 Flocks of geese have passed from north to south-west, but I have not heard 

 of any being shot. I took out of the throat of a young herring gull, shot 

 early on the morning of Thursday last, a great part of a missel thrush ; 

 the head and beak, whole, severed from the neck close to the skull ; the 

 neck, the heart and entrails, and the flesh off the breast, but no skin or 

 bones, except the skull and neck. The gull had apparently torn off the 

 skin, rejecting the breast-bone, back, wings and legs. I found a few tail 

 and wing-feathers of the thrush with the parts eaten. A very small pipe-fish 

 was in its mouth when shot. — James Couch; 7, College Street, Guernsey, 

 October 19, 1874. 



noney Bnzzard in Cheshire. — I was taking a walk near Bowdon on the 

 evening of the 27th of May, 1872, when I heard a shot close to where 

 I was, and on looking round I saw a keeper picking up a bird, which turned 

 out to be a magnificent specimen of the honey buzzard. It was a male, 

 and possessed the beautiful gray tinge on the head which Mr. Gould says, in 

 his ' Birds of Britain,' always distinguishes the adult examples of this bird. 

 He had evidently been feeding on a nest of young song thrushes, and 

 having a "regular worry," for the feathers of the forehead contained a 

 number of fragments of the egg of this bird, and on dissection I found he 

 had swallowed two young ones. The sternum appeared to me very small 

 for so large a bird. The locality was particularly suitable for the nesting of 

 this bird, being thickly wooded with a number of fine beech trees, but 

 though I kept a sharp look out all the summer I did not see anything of a 

 female. — Francis Nicholson; Chesham Place, Boicdon, Cheshire. 



SECOND SEEIES — VOL. IX. 3 K 



