OCCASIONAL NOTES. 259 
fearless, as it allowed the person who shot it to approach as near as he 
liked.—F. Kerry (Harwich). 
Lirrte Guixis and Kirriwaxes 1x Essrx.—On the 29th December, 
1876, an immature specimen of the Little Gull, and on the 8th January, 
1877, a mature bird of the same species, was shot in the Harwich harbour. 
The old bird had lost a portion of the upper mandible, and the wound 
appeared to have been of long standing, as the lost portion was being re- 
produced. On the 11th January last a mature Kittiwake was shot on the 
River Stour; and on the 12th February an immature bird of the same 
Species was seen to alight in a farm-yard at Great Oakley, where it was 
caught, being too exhausted to fly further, and being literally nothing but 
feathers and bones.—Ip. 
Lirtte Birrern 1x Gurrnsry.—In November last a Little Bittern 
was caught in the Vale Road, Guernsey, and brought alive to the shop of 
Mr. Couch, the bird-stuffer. I did not see the bird at the time, but it has 
since been sent over to me: it is a young bird of the year, and Mr. Couch 
informs me a male by dissection.—Cxc1t Sirs (Bishop’s Lydeard). 
Nicutineates 1n Brirrany.—I have been reading your interesting 
book ‘Our Summer Migrants,’ and have just come across a notice of the 
Nightingale, at page 34: at the bottom of the page you say, on the authority 
of Mr. Blyth, “ There are none in Brittany.” Some fifteen years ago, one 
May night, there were plenty. In the evening I left Nantes, near St. Malo, 
in one of those odd little conveyances common to country parts of France. 
I was with a Scotch cousin who had never heard a Nightingale; well, we 
jogged along, much cramped, weary and hot, far into the night. On 
nearing Chateaubriant the little conveyance was stopped at the foot of a 
steep hill, for all to walk up. There wasa forest on each side of the road—it 
was a dark, still night ; both sides of the road, among the trees, seemed to be 
alive with Nightingales singing their loudest. You may imagine my Scotch 
cousin's astonishment, he being a keen observer of such things. I was so 
impressed with the circumstance that I cannot forbear writing to you to con- 
tradict Mr. Blyth’s statement, as I know the Nightingale’s note well; and, 
at the time we beard it, no other birds in that place could have been singing 
as they did—H. V. M. Wutson (33, Spencer Road, New Wandsworth). 
Brrps LypateD By THE Wind on WeaTHER Vanus.—At page 271 
of the ‘ Zoologist’ is a letter from Mr. A. P. Smith about a Woodcock 
which struck against the vane of a church at Ipswich, and was impaled on 
the arrow. As some may hardly have credited so extraordinary a story, I 
may quote a corroborative account from the ‘ Manchester Courier’ of a 
similar accident to a Jackdaw :—“ During the recent gales the inhabitants 
of Aspatria were surprised to observe a dark-looking object attached to 
the end of an arrow-shaped vane on the summit of the lofty tower of their 
church. On a nearer examination it proved to be the lifeless body of a 
