OCCASIONAL NOTES. 61 
the tuft on the head was very small. They were shy, and could only be 
approached while they dived. The gunner told me they remained under 
water for fully a minute. On the 25rd a female Goldeneye was sent to me. 
It was shot by one of Lord Muncaster’s keepers on the River Irt, in Drizy 
parish. It was alone, and had been feeding upon sandhoppers. In October 
last I saw a Great Northern Diver on Wastwater, and have been told to-day 
(January 6th) it is still about the lake, though it has been frequently 
fired at—Cuar.us A. Parxer (Gosforth, Carnforth). 
GREAT PLOVER oR THICK-KNEE AT THE SCILLY Istxs.—During the last 
heavy frost in West Cornwall and the Scilly Isles we had the usual immi- 
gration of large flocks of land birds, comprising the Thrush tribe, Larks, 
Finches, and other of our small birds. I have not been able to ascertain 
that any rare species of note occurred, and the only bird of interest that has 
come under my uotice from the Scilly Isles is a good-plumaged specimen of 
the Great Plover or Thick-knee. This bird, as I have before remarked, 
seems to hold a line in its autumnal migration which just takes in the 
South of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. I never knew the occurrence of this 
bird in Cornwall except in the winter months, its spring migration taking 
it just as much north above the latitude of Cornwall. Thus the species, 
although well known in Hampshire and Wiltshire, and spoken of by White 
in his ‘ Selborne,’ is never seen or heard in the summer mouths in Corn- 
wall.— Epwarp Hiarze Ropp (Penzance). 
BrittsH Newts.—From an article by M. Ferrand Lataste, in the last 
volume of the ‘Journal of the Societe Zoologique de France.’ it appears that 
the supposed fourth species of British Newt, Gray’s Banded Newt, 
Ommatotriton vittatus of Cooke’s ‘ Reptiles,’ may be altogether removed from 
the British Catalogue. It was first introduced into the British List by 
Jenyns, 1835, on the faith of some specimens found in a bottle in the 
British Museum by the late Dr. Gray, which, being associated with some 
British Newts, were supposed to have been obtained in the neighbourhood 
of London. Through a somewhat similar error, some specimens in the 
collection of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris were believed by Valenciennes 
to have been obtained in France, near Toul, and other examples were 
supposed to have been found living at Antwerp. It has thus come to pass 
that naturalists, copying one from another, have assigned England, France, 
and Belgium as the locality of this Newt. It now turns out from 
M. Lataste’s researches that all these localities are erroneous, and that the 
so-called Triton vittatus is no other than the Triton ophryticus of Berthold, 
an Hastern species of Newt which is found in Syria and Asia Minor. The 
British Newts are now therefore reduced to three in number:—the ~ 
