NOTES FROM DEVON AND CORNWALL. 205 
limit just reaching the Land’s End and the Lizard lands (the 
most southern in the British Isles), the corresponding northern 
migration in the spring just taking the whole number above the 
southern latitudes of the extreme western counties. 
Possibly we may have something analogous to this in the 
case of the Ring Ouzel. Some such idea seems to have crossed 
the mind of Gilbert White when penning his twentieth letter to 
Pennant, and his remarks in that letter on the migration of the 
Ring Ouzel may be here appropriately quoted. Referring to the 
birds of this species observed by him in spring and autumn, he 
remarks :—‘‘ Now perhaps these Ouzels are not the Ouzels of the 
North of England, but belong to the northern parts of Europe; 
and may retire before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those 
parts; and return to breed in the spring, when the cold abates. 
-If this be the case, here is discovered a new bird of winter 
passage, concerning whose migrations the writers are silent; but 
if these birds should prove the Ouzels of the north of England, 
then here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never 
before remarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire 
beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most 
probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that 
they would have continued so long unnoticed in the southern 
counties.” 
ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM DEVON AND CORNWALL. 
By JoHn GatTcoMBL. 
On the 11th January, the ground being covered with snow, 
flocks of Sky Larks were continually coming across Plymouth 
Sound from the east, and going west, for which quarter they all 
seemed to be bound, but not nearly in such numbers as I have 
seen them on previous occasions during severe weather. A 
Sclavonian Grebe, which was fishing off the sea-wall near the 
Devil’s Point, remained until dark. Cormorants, Shags, and 
Razorbills were plentiful about this time, the latter in flocks, 
and the Stonehouse birdstuffer had received two more Common 
Bitterns killed in the neighbourhood; the stomachs of these 
I examined, and found them to contain the fur of water rats 
and mice, vegetable fibre, the elytra of beetles, and many small 
crabs. 
