68 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Wuirr’s TurosH NEAR Wuirtsy.— In the latter part of November, 
1878, I received a Thrush which I could not make out or find described in 
any book on birds then accessible to me. It looked not unlike a young 
Missel Thrush, but its greater length and other peculiarities, such as the pos- 
session of fourteen tail-feathers, precluded its identification with that species. 
I have since shown it to one or two ornithologists, and your opinion, based 
on the description which I sent you, leaves me no longer in doubt that the 
bird is White’s Thrush, Jurdus varius of Pallas. It had killed itself by 
coming in contact with a telegraph wire, and had displaced and injured 
several of the neck feathers, but was otherwise in good condition. It has 
been preserved for the Museum here, and forms an interesting addi- 
tion to our collection of county birds.\—Martrin Simpson (The Museum, 
Whitby). 
(It will be in the recollection of our readers that a specimen of White's 
Thrush was procured at Hardacres, Berwickshire, in December, 1878, 
within a month of the capture of the one above-mentioned (Zool. 1879, 
p- 133). Possibly, therefore, these two birds may have travelled to this 
country in company.— Eb. | 
GoosaANDER oN THE Exe.—An adult male Mergus merganser, Liun., 
was shot on the river, near Countess Weir, on the 10th inst. This is an 
extremely rare bird in the western counties in adult plumage. We have 
in this Museum a fine old male, shot near Exeter, about 1840, from the 
collection of Mr. Robert Cumming, but that and the present specimen are 
the only adult examples I know of as having occurred in Devonshire. 
Immature specimens occur now and then in severe winters. I obtained a 
young male in 1856, and others have occurred in the neighbourhood at 
long intervals. It is unfortunate that the beautiful buff or salmon colour 
of the plumage of the under parts of the adult male, together with the 
carmine of the bill, and the rich orange of the legs and feet, disappear in 
stuffed specimens. The breast and belly become quite white after a time. 
The present specimen had hardly completed its moult, many of the feathers 
still retaining a portion of the sheaths. The bony labyrinth of the wind- 
pipe is well developed—W. 8. M. D’Ursan (Albert Memorial Museum, 
Exeter). 
Snow Buntine, Sporrep Crake, and Birtern at Letsron.—On the 
11th November last I met with a rather large flock of Snow Buntings, on a 
barley stubble near here, about six miles from the sea. These birds are, 
I believe, seldom seen in this neighbourhood, except on the coast, where 
they are pretty regular winter visitors. Two Spotted Crakes were flushed 
by some snipe-shooters from a large piece of reeds at Leiston, last November, 
one of which was killed. On the 27th December my brother flushed a 
Bittern from some reeds near the sea-wall at Leiston; it rose close to his 
