5086 THE ZooLoGist—SEPTEMBER, 1876. 
Breast-bones of Guillemots.—I have compared the breast-bones of some 
bridled guillemots with breast-bones of common ones, and I cannot find a 
shadow of difference. Being from birds of my own preparing, I took the 
precaution of marking the sex where I was able, but I do not see that 
the bones of the females differ in the least degree from the males. While 
there are still some who cling to the long-lived belief of the bridled 
guillemot’s being a good species, which I for one can never assent to, 
this grain of evidence against it may be worth having. I may add that 
I recently prepared the breast-bone of a white guillemot (a beautiful variety, 
but not an albino), and that also agreed in size and contour with the bone 
of the normal bird, and in no respect differed that I could see from several 
with which I compared it.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
“ Kittiwake in Winter” (Zool. S.S. 5048).—At the time my friend 
Mr. Alston recorded a specimen of the kittiwake from the Ayrshire coast in 
winter, it was generally considered to be a rare species in Scotland at that 
season. Since then—or from about that time—they have appeared almost 
every winter upon our coasts; and in the winter of 1872-73 multitudes of 
this species frequented the estuary of the River Forth between Kincardine 
and Alloa. For an account of the invasion of arctic gulls during that 
season I would refer your readers to the lately published part of the 
‘Proceedings of the Glasgow Natural-History Society’ (vol. ii., part 2, 
pp- 198 and 210), where Mr. Robert Gray and myself take notice of these 
and other species, notably the glaucous and Iceland gulls. I should say 
that at the time Mr. Gurney received his specimens of the kittiwake from 
Dumfriesshire they were decidedly 4 rare winter bird in Scotland. I think 
it would be interesting to naturalists to have statistics of this arctic invasion 
collected throughout Great Britain. I understand that unusual numbers 
were also observed in the estuary of the Solway, and the Severn and Bristol 
Channel, and elsewhere, and glaucous and Iceland gulls were seen in 
numbers along the east coast of Scotland. The localities visited, however, 
by the Iceland gulls appear to have been much fewer in number than those 
visited by the glaucous, judging from such records as we possess from 
correspondents. The Firth of Forth, indeed, seems to have been the 
favoured locality, and there they were quite abundant.—John A. Harvie 
Brown. 
The Worcestershire Tropic-Bird.—Illness and other causes have pre- 
vented my usual attention to the contents of the ‘ Zoologist’ for several 
months. I have only just observed the several notes on the tropic-bird, 
and in answer to Mr. Gurney’s query (S. 8S. 4766), I am glad to be able to 
say that Lam the present possessor of the ‘“‘ Worcestershire Tropic-Bird,” 
haying purchased it, with about two hundred other birds, at the sale alluded 
to in 1867. It is certainly Phaéton ethereus, not the red-tailed species. 
It has been authenticated as having been picked up, in the flesh, on the 
