NOTES AND QUERIES, 429 



greatly exaggerated; whether the good is enough to balance the evil is 

 another point. — J. H. Gurnky (Northrepps, Norwich.) 



Ruff and Green Sandpiper in Co. Sligo. — On September 8th I was 

 presented by Mr. C. Little with a specimen of the RufT, shot by him a few 

 days previously, when Grouse shooting on a lone flat moor near Tullylin, 

 in this county. The bird was probably a female, but owing to its bad 

 condition, I was unable to ascertain its sex with any certainty. The Ruff 

 is a very rare bird in this western district, this being the first specimen 

 I have met with, or even heard of, and in Thompson's ' Birds of Ireland ' 

 there is no record of its occurrence on the western coast. On August '28th, 

 when walking through Castletown demesne, I disturbed a Green Sandpiper 

 as it was feeding along the bank of a stream running from a mill-pond. 

 I was surprised at its unusual tameness, for on being flushed it flew only a 

 few yards, and alighted on the muddy bank of the pond, and gave me 

 a good opportunity of observing it for some time at a distance of about 

 forty yards. From its very dark plumage it was evidently an old bird. 

 The Green Sandpiper is of very unusual occurrence in this district — some- 

 times a period of several years elapses between its visits ; the last noted 



occurrence was in 1877, when I shot an immature bird on October 4th. 



Robert Warren (Moyview, Ballina). 



Water Rail near Penzance. — I received a Water Rail which had been 

 killed by flying against the telegraph-wires near Marazion station. On 

 taking it to Mr. Viugoe to have it set up, I found that he had already 

 received two others on that day from places within the district. The bird 

 is a scarce one in this neighbourhood, and does not, I believe, breed here. 

 This coincidence of three specimens received together suggests a migration. 

 — Thomas Cornish (Penzance). 



[The late Mr. Rodd, in his ' Birds of Cornwall,' writes of this bird 

 (p. 134) : — " In sedgy morasses and overgrown wet ditches the Water 

 Rail is sometimes met with. It is probably not uncommon, but from its 

 skulking habits and disinclination to take wing, unless pressed by a dog, 

 it doubtless often escapes observation." — Ed.]. 



Black Stork near Rainham. — About the beginning of July a large 

 heron-like bird, with black back and belly white, was seen by a shepherd on 

 an island marsh near here. On Sept. 8th Mr. Charles Gordon, of Dover, 

 being at my house, we happened to go on the same marsh to shoot, and 

 beside the shepherd's house on the creek shore we found a skin of a bird 

 very much decayed, which Mr. Gordon pronounced to be the skin of a 

 Black Stork. From its appearance we assumed that it must have been 

 lying there for about six weeks, floating on the shore with the tide. 

 I picked up the pinion of one wing, one foot, and the skull. On ques- 

 tioning the man he said that he had captured it at a small plash of water 



