NOTES AND QUERIES. 467 



throw off the Ruff, and have often seen them at the " hill." One, William 

 Parker, of Crosuns, near Southport, caught— between thirty and forty years 

 ago— a young Ruff which could not fly; this he kept for several days in a 

 walled-in garden ; it was then killed by a game-cock. I have now in my 

 possession two males which were taken on the Mere about forty years ago, 

 by the late Henry Canner, gamekeeper to the late Sir Thomas Hesketh. 

 Both birds have the ruffs and auricles fully developed, and one has the 

 tubercles very prominent. Selby (Brit. Ornithology, vol. ii. p. 131) states that 

 " The papillae, or small fleshy tubercles, that cover the face and the region 

 of the eyes during the height of the season (and which are ascertained by 

 experiments on birds kept in confinement, to be only consequent on sexual 

 connection) also disappear." Montagu says, "it is evident that the bare 

 papiUous head is only attendant on venery." According to these authorities, 

 then, one of my birds must have paired, and as this takes place in the 

 immediate vicinity of the future nesting-place, the evidence in support of 

 my contention is conclusive.— Robert J. Howard (Blackburn). 



Shearwaters on the Rock of Filfola.— Filfola is an islet between 

 two and three miles from the S.W. coast of Malta ; it is reached by hiring 

 a small boat at a fishing village near Zurico, but landing is impossible with 

 the slightest swell. It is a precipitous limestone, not covering more than 

 perhaps half an acre, surrounded with debris, the fragments sometimes 

 being of great size; amongst these fragments grows a coarse herbage, 

 apparently of the nature somewhat of samphire, in great abundance. Filfola 

 is the breeding haunt of the Mediterranean Shearwater {Pujinus Kuhli), 

 the Manx Shearwater [P. anglormn), the Storm Vetvel [Procellaria pelacjica), 

 and the Rock Pigeon [Columha livia). I visited this rock with a friend on 

 the 5th and 12th April last. We found P. anglorum breeding in some 

 numbers ; they appeared to breed in a colony of about ten or fifteen yards 

 radius ; immediately outside this radius we could find none, though if we 

 had had opportunity to search further we might probably have found more, 

 but on the occasion of both our visits circumstances prevented our longer 

 stay on the islet ; on the last occasion we had great difficulty in embarking 

 on account of the heavy swell. We only found on one occasion a hole 

 proper selected as a breeding-place, and this was about five feet from the 

 ground in the face of the rock ; it extended twelve or fifteen feet, and 

 terminated in a small fissure, too small for egress. The egg was about 

 three feet and a half from the entrance, and two birds, presumably male 

 and female, were with it. The favourite position for the egg was in the 

 natural recesses formed by the overhanging herbage, or in the roomy and 

 cool chambers underneath the fragments. Sometimes a few dried stalks 

 were used as a quasi-nest, but more often there was no pretence of one, not 

 even a hollow. We took two birds from off their egg, both of which on 

 dissection proved to be males. We also found a few Pvffinus Kuhli asleep 



