THE ZOOLOGIST—NOVEMBER, 1876. 5167 
‘instance, and perhaps none have done so; therefore if, when they are 
detained so long, none do breed in this district, it is highly probable the 
bird above mentioned may have been a migratory one. But what does your 
valued correspondent, Mr. Gurney, jun., wish us to understand in speaking 
of a woodcock found on the shore at Beeston, in Norfolk, about the end of 
July, when he says, “ The inference is that it was attempting to migrate in 
the summer time, at a date when no migration is known to take place of 
this or any other British bird”? This must surely be a lapsus plume, and 
should be passed over quietly, like a similar one, in speaking of swifts, 
“they are slow flyers, in spite of their long wings.”—F’. Boyes. 
Great Snipe in Perthshire—A friend who was shooting, in the third 
week of August, over some extensive moors, eight miles north of Dunblane, 
flushed a pair of great snipe (Gallinago major, Gmelin). He did not, how- 
ever, succeed in getting a shot. The keeper, a most intelligent man of his 
class, told him they frequently see them on this moor, and he has flushed 
them all the year round. I was shooting over the same ground in 
September, but did not come across any of the “ big solitary,” although 
I looked the ground over somewhat carefully where they had been seen. 
I brought away, however, as proof positive of their occurrence, part of the 
skull and upper mandible of one shot during the previous season in the 
same locality. On the 7th of September I saw a remarkably fine example 
of Motacilla alba on the grass, within a few feet of the Lodge door—John 
Cordeaux. 
Solitary Snipe, Hoopoe and Leach’s Petrel in Cornwall.—A specimen 
of the solitary snipe was procured last week in the neighbourhood of 
St. Austell: I am told that its weight was fully eight ounces. The hoopoe 
does not frequently favour us with its visits, but scarcely a spring passes 
without specimens turning up. Within the last week three hoopoes 
were shot in this immediate neighbourhood. A forktailed petrel was found 
dead here: this is a rare bird with us, only a few specimens having been 
obtained at long intervals.—Edward Hearle Rodd; Penzance, October Aili. 
1876. 
Little Crake at Hastings—In writing of the little crake in your last 
number (Zool. S. S. 5126) I omitted to state, not having the ‘ Zoologist’ by 
me, that it was obtained the same day but one of the same month as our 
other Hastings specimen, which was picked up—not by a cat, but by a boy— 
on the 17th of April, seventeen years ago (Zool. 6537). In spite of this 
singular coincidence, two birds could hardly differ more in plumage, the 
example of 1859 being a type of the blue phase of colour, while that of 
1876 is, as already stated, in the brown phase.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
[The latter was no doubt the younger bird; the change in plumage in 
this species being analogous to that which is observable in the common 
moorhen.— Eb. ] 
