2666 The Zoologist — July, 1871. 



'Birds of Somersetshire,' says that the gannets have a small 

 breeding station on the island of Lundy, in the Bristol Channel, 

 No doubt this bird came from Lundy. Another has been killed on 

 the Severn at Clevelode. 



Cravat Goose (Anas canadensis, Linn.) — Killed at Cotheridge. 

 In the Worcester Museum. 



Egyptian Goose. — Killed at Leigh. In the Worcester Museum. 



Shoveller Duck. — Killed at Rosebury Rock, on the Teme. 



Little Auk. — This very rare bird was taken alive in an exhausted 

 state near Tewkesbury in 1841, and two other specimens were 

 picked up near Worcester, driven inward by the November gales 

 of that year. 



Tropic Bird (Phaeton aetherius, Linn.) — The late Mr. John 

 Walcott pointed out to me a specimen of this bird in his fine 

 collection, and stated confidently that it was picked up dead, but 

 fresh, at Cradley, near Malvern. As it could not have been kept 

 alive in any collection, it would appear to have been carried away 

 in the vortex of some hurricane, and so left where it was discovered. 

 Mr. Walcott preserved it with great care, and relied on the evidence 

 he had that it was picked up in the flesh, although dead when found. 

 Whether the tropic bird has been ever before found as a wanderer 

 in Europe I am not aware, and the fact could scarcely be received 

 without good evidence •, but the sustained powers of flight in birds 

 is not generally suflScicnlly estimated, or their migrations and 

 wanderings need not excite much wonder. Mr. Southwell, in a 

 paper " On the Flight of Birds," read before the Norwich Natu- 

 ralists' Society, in November, 1809, says that the flight of a hawk, 

 when its powers are fully exerted, has been calculated at one 

 hundred and fifty miles an hour, and the usual flight of the eider 

 duck at the rate of ninety miles an hour. The carrier pigeon will 

 make an average speed of fifty miles an hour in a long flight, and 

 even rooks, when leisurely returning to roost with full stomachs, 

 fly at the rate of about thirty miles an hour. The powers of pro- 

 tracted flight that birds possess is necessary, that thus, in seeking 

 subsistence, they may sweep a wide tract of country when the 

 supplies of their own vicinage are exhausted, and thus in winter 

 the frugivorous birds of the north are forced to make distant 

 southern peregrinations. 



