OCCASIONAL NOTES. 59 
the Brent Goose come out of the osier-bed; another then appeared, 
and he watched the pair for some time. They were very tame. Bennett 
is a well-known gunner here. He keeps a shooting-punt with a punt-gun, 
the only one on the river. As he had just started for a trip on the Monday, 
he was surprised to see a strange bird get up and fly into the osier-bed; he 
then approached in the boat and shot it. I am told that the other was then 
at Great Barford, a few miles down the river. The second instance, of 
course, is not near so important as the first, where the bird was actually 
obtained. The birdstuffer also brought me a Willow Wren, which had 
evidently been but a short time set up. He assured me that it was brought 
to him in the flesh on the 21st December.—C. Marrurw Prior (Bedford). 
SCARCITY OF THE CoRN CRAKE.—With regard to this subject, noted 
in ‘The Zoologist’ by the Rev. Murray A. Mathew, my brother, and 
Mr. Leach, I may remark that in this district, where Corn Crakes were 
at one time considered common, I never once during the past year (though 
out constantly) heard the familiar note or knew of a nest being found. 
The only example of the species that 1 met with, I killed when shooting in 
the New Forest on October 18th—C. Byerave Wuarton (Hounsdown, 
Totton, Hants). 
Scarcity or THE Corn Craxe.—I can confirm the experience of other 
observers as to the scarcity of the Corn Crake in various parts of the 
country during the summer and autumn of 1877. During the month of 
September I was shooting over about 3000 acres in Essex, and although 
I walked over some very likely ground, with here and there a good bit of 
clover-seed, I never saw a single Corn Crake. Similarly, when shooting, 
during the last week of September, in Suffolk, near Saxmundham, over 
good partridge-ground, where the bag was never less than fifteen brace of 
birds a-day, besides rabbits and hares, not a single Rail was flushed, not- 
withstanding the repeated attempts of three good spaniels to find one. In 
Sussex and Hampshire in former years I have sometimes shot five or six in 
a day, and in Middlesex at one time this bird was one of the commonest of 
our summer migrants, its incessant “crake, crake,” during the months 
of May and June, being heard all day long, and very frequently far into 
the night.—J. EK. Harrina. 
Donuts 1n Beprorpsuire 1x DucemBer.—When shooting near Bed- 
ford, on the 24th December last, I was surprised to see a small flock of 
Dunlins flying past. I killed one of them, which came rather nearer to me 
than the rest, and thought at the time it was but a migratory movement. 
I observed them again, however, on the 31st, and am told that they have 
been some time in the vicinity. On dissection of the specimen killed, it 
appeared that the stomach was quite full of river or brook slime, mixed with 
