OCCASIONAL NOTES. 63 
reliable man, and since writing the above have heard from him as follows :— 
“T have not seen the King Eider this winter, and I don’t think he has been 
seen by any one upon our shores since last summer.”—T. H. NEtson 
(North Bondgate, Bishop Auckland). 
Ewer Duck on tHE Sussex Coast.—Messrs. Pratt & Son, of North 
Street Quadrant, have on view an immature male Eider Duck. The bird, 
which has some,whitish feathers on the shoulder and lower part of the 
neck, settled on some rocks off Rottingdean on the evening of January 8rd, 
and stopped there all night. On the morning of the 4th Mr. Guthrie, of 
Rottingdean, went off in a boat, and after a long chase succeeded in obtaining 
it. I examined the body, and fancy it must have been wounded before, as 
there were signs of old peritonitis on the right side of the abdomen. Knox, 
in the third edition of his ‘ Ornithological Rambles in Sussex,’ says of the 
Hider Duck :—* A very rare wanderer from the north. An immature speci- 
men was shot by Serjeant Carter, in November, 1830, at Chichester Harbour, 
and two were killed some years ago, associated with a flock of Brent Geese, 
on Rye marsh.” Since then I can hear of no other recorded instance of an 
Hider Duck being shot in Sussex.—Herperr Laneton (Brighton). 
Birds Roostine 1n ReEps.—Two years ago I reported having observed 
Grey Wagtails roosting by the side of a lake amongst reeds in Co. Donegal 
(Zool. 1878, p. 890). Since then I have noticed at Lough Fern, in the 
same county, immense quantities of Starlings taking up their night-quarters 
in a similar way. This observation has been made at Lough Fern before, 
by Mr. R. J. Montgomery, in the year 1858 (Proc. Dubl. Nat. Hist. Soc., 
vol. ii., p. 82). He mentions that they had resorted there for a great many 
years, and expresses surprise, as he had elsewhere found them “very 
capricious with regard to their roosting-place,” but Lough Fern still 
presents irresistible attractions to these birds. Mr. Montgomery states that 
the Starlings commence going to this lake for the purpose of roosting in 
November. It was at the end of September when I observed them. On 
August 24th last, when making my way from the Bluestack Mountains to 
the Gap of Barnesmon, in the south-western part of Donegal, I came upon 
& mountain lake named Lough Sallagh, in a very remote district. Never- 
theless there was a cottage hard by. It was dusk, and as I came near the 
edge of the lake I heard a low concert of myriads of notes mixed up in a 
confused medley issuing from the reeds along the shore. This sound 
proceeded from a vast number of Swallows which had just arrived and 
settled down amongst the reeds for the night; and I was informed by the 
owner of the cottage that they came there at that time of the year, for 
about a month, every evening. They clung sideways, so as to be in a 
vertical position, to the stems of the reed, often many upon the same 
stem, as I noticed in the case of the Wagtails; and from their coming 
