3384 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
Brack Rats 1x Norra Lancasutre.—On the 15th and 16th of June 
I received four specimens of the Black Rat (Mus rattus), including an old 
female and three young ones, which had been trapped in the ship-building 
yard in this town. Apart from the colour (a greyish black), the extreme 
prolongation “of the tail, ears, and nose would be sufficient to distinguish 
them at a glance from the ordinary brown species (Mus decumanus). The 
specimens in question have been set up, and form an interesting addition 
to the collection of the Barrow Naturalists’ Field Club.—W. ArrHuR 
Durnrorp (Barrow-in-Furness). 
ANECDOTE OF THE SporreD FLYcaveHieR.—I am indebted to my friend 
Mr. Edward Fountaine, of Easton, Norfolk, for the relation of the following 
circumstance, which occurred in that parish on the 11th July :—A pair of 
Spotted Flycatchers had a brood of young ones in a nest built against the 
wall of a gentleman's house, and were, as usual, tame and familiar, and fed 
their young freely, undeterred by the presence of bystanders. On the day 
above mentioned, the gentleman I have referred to himself fed the young 
F lycatchers with a few flies, which they readily swallowed ; but on returning 
to the nest a quarter of an hour later the young birds were all found on the 
ground, dead, and with a small hole (apparently pecked), in the head of each. 
One of the cld Flycatchers was shortly afterwards seen at the spot with 
raised and ruffled feathers, and the nest was observed to be partly destroyed. 
This occurred about the middle of the day, when no four-footed vermin 
would be likely to be prowling about, and the inference seems to be that 
the old birds destroyed their brood in consequence of an unfeathered biped 
having presumed to feed them.—J. H. Gurney (Northrepps, Norwich). 
Summer Migrants 1N THE IsLe of WicHT.—Though comparatively 
few migrants have visited us this season, Nightingales have been 
unusually abundant, particularly in the Undercliff, to which they may 
have resorted for shelter, the weather having been very severe throughout 
the month of April. However, from the middle of April till the middle 
of June they were in constant song; and on the 8th of the latter month 
they were to be heard in all directions, more particularly at St. Lawrence, 
a favourite resort, the banks and terraces beneath the shelving cliffs being 
dotted and patched with underwood and brier, matted and overgrown with 
a profusion of honeysuckle, traveller's joy, and wild hop, fringed with a 
luxuriant growth of herbage; so that one may be within a few yards of the 
songster without seeing it. Not so in some parts of Kent, where they 
