4698 THE ZooLocist—NovEMBER, 1875. 
August with only a little dark moulting. Looking at the skins it is evident 
from their beaks that they are not mature.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
Redthroated Diyer.—In October redthroated divers often come up the 
Cley and Blakenny channels, to the distance of two or three miles from the 
sea, and are occasionally left behind by the rapidly receding tide. A 
common razorbill was cut off in the same way: I found him sitting dis- 
consolate nearly a mile from the water’s edge. I have a bullet which was 
taken out of a redthroated diver’s neck, where it had probably lain for a 
long time, for when it was given me it was completely embedded in fat. 
I have read one or two instances of arrow-heads—supposed to be Esquimaux 
arrows—being found in the bodies of divers which were shot on the coast 
of Ireland. I have several times had the present species sent to me with 
the red neck-patch, but they were not spotted on the back with white spots, 
as Mr. Yarrell represents in his plate. I once got a variety with a round 
white spot, the size of a shilling, on one side of its neck: it was shot in 
October, and was beginning to shed the red throat.—Id. 
Singular Freak of a Herring Gull—A young herring gull was taken from 
the nest in the cliffs of Burrow Island, in Biglensy Bay, in May, 1871, and 
was carried to the village of Biglensy, about two miles from the sea. Having 
had one of its wings clipped, it was placed in a small yard at the back of 
the village inn, where it became very domesticated and bold, being fed upon 
any offal that was thrown from the house. It adopted but a few special 
friends; one, a little boy about eight years old, was allowed to handle it in 
any way he thought proper, and he became quite a favourite. The bird 
would ramble about in a field adjoining the yard at pleasure, and had been 
seen occasionally beyond those bounds in other fields nearer the sea. It 
remained in this state until May, 1872, when it was missed and given up 
as entirely lost; but, strange to say, one morning in November, 1873, a 
beautiful white and gray gull alighted on the house top and dropped down 
into the yard. All attention was directed to it immediately: it seemed to 
have precisely the same habits as their old lost favourite, but—not under- 
standing the change of plumage to the adult state—it was not believed 
to be the same, until the little boy came on the scene, whom the gull 
instantly recognised, and allowed him the same familiarity as formerly : that 
decided the point. The bird has continued up to the present to regularly 
visit them every day for about two hours, when it returns to its native 
haunts. On several occasions another bird of the same kind has been seen, 
on the wing, in its company, but does not venture to drop into the yard.— 
Henry Nicholls, jun.; Roseland, Kingsbridge, South Devon, October 5, 
1875. 
Audacity of the Common Skua (Stercorarius catarrhactes (Linn.)—The 
following curious story was told me about the great, or, as it is called, the 
common skua. At the edge of Blakenny channel, a few miles from here, 
