64 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
so regularly to the same lake it may be inferred that this host was the 
gathered assemblage of Swallows from a considerable district, and that 
such resorts could not therefore be numerous. It is doubtless this habit 
of roosting over the water, before migration, that has given rise to the 
superstition about their subaqueous hybernation.— Henry CHICHESTER 
Harr (Dublin). 
STARLING HAWKING FoR Fi1es.—Amongst the Natural History Notes 
included in the last published Report of the Committee of the Queenwood 
College Mutual Improvement Society is one which relates to the actions of 
a tame Starling, which was taken when young by one of the students from 
a hole in an ash-tree growing in a chalk-pit near Queenwood. This bird, 
after being a short time in confinement, was allowed its liberty, and became 
very tame and fearless. It would come to its owner's whistle, and one of its 
favourite amusements was hawking for moths and butterflies. Perched on 
its master’s wrist, it would wait until a passing insect attracted its attention, 
and would then swoop off and return with the captured prey to its post of 
observation. The same thing has been done with the Great Grey Shrike. 
Starlings being easily procurable, perhaps some of the readers of ‘ The 
Zoologist’ may next summer like to make a similar experiment.—J. E. 
Hartinc. 
Rep-winceD Starring in Hertrorpsarre.—A bird of this species, 
now in the possession of Mr. Norman Evans, of Nash Mills, was shot in 
the spring of 1879 near Bovingdon. I have recorded the occurrence in 
some “ Notes on Birds” communicated to the ‘ Transactions of the Hert- 
fordshire Natural History Society’ (Dec. 1880), but as the Red-winged 
Starling is amongst the rarer stragglers to the British Islands it may be 
well to let the fact of this recent occurrence be made more widely known to 
ornithologists.—J. E. Lirrtezoy (Hunton Bridge, Watford). 
Great Nortuern Driver in Somersersarre. — On January 21st 
I received a specimen of the Great Northern Diver which had been shot on 
a reservoir at Barrow, near Bristol, on the previous day. It was a young 
male, in winter plumage; weight 6 tbs. 10$0zs. Its stomach contained a 
small quantity of vegetable matter. The weather here is intensely cold, as 
many as twenty-three degrees of frost having been recorded, and the country 
is covered with snow.—Rocer Forp (Wraxall Court, Nailsea). 
Dorreret In CornwaLtt.—Two specimens of the Common Dotterel, 
Charadrius morinellus, were killed by one of the keepers of the lighthouses 
at the Lizard on April 28th, 1880. They were shot by him from one of the 
towers whilst hovering around the lantern, being attracted by the electric 
light; this was between 2 and 3 a.m. Both birds are now in my collection. 
As the Dotterel is seldom met with in Cornwall, its occurrence here may be 
worth recording.—Herrpert Passtncam Harr (Polbrean, The Lizard). 
