OCCASIONAL NOTES. 421 
Mayo coast), seeing its brownish black and light-coloured under parts, 
scarcely a doubt remains on my mind that the two birds seen in August, 
1849, were specimens of the rarer Puffinus griseus—RoBert WARREN 
(Moyview, Ballina). 
RAVENS BREEDING IN Captivity.—The following is from a recent 
number of ‘The Bazaar’:—‘‘ It may be interesting to some of your readers 
to know that the Raven will breed in a domestic state. I havea fine young 
pair, which were hatched in March last, from a pair of old birds in possession 
of a gipsy, who has bred them from domesticated birds for the last ten 
years. They reared six young this season. He tells me that the hen makes 
her nest in an old box, and that the cock bird takes his turn on the nest. 
He lets the birds out in his yard at breeding time.—ELuis S. Harris.” 
The fact of Ravens breeding thus freely in confinement must, I think, 
be of unusual occurrence, but perhaps the experiment has not often been 
tried. Some years since I had a tame Raven which had his—or her, for 
I believe it to have been a hen—full liberty with uncut wings. This bird 
did not stray far from home; but, strange as it may appear, a second Raven 
was one day seen for some time hovering over the house. Ravens are now 
very scarce in this strictly preserved district, only an occasional straggler 
being seen or heard of; therefore this stranger must, in all probability, have 
come from a great distance, confirming the well-known vast powers of sight 
as well as of flight possessed by these birds, their range of vision being of 
course yery much increased by the great elevation at which they soar. 
Ravens were formerly occasionally found breeding in this county, and within 
four or five miles of this place is a tree upon which a pair annually reared 
their young, and which was, I believe, carefully protected by the proprietor ; 
but now, tempora mutantur, and Ravens, Crows, Magpies, Hawks, &c., are 
considered as vermin. Some young Ravens were many years ago taken 
from a nest at Gedgrave, near Orford, and conveyed to Leiston Abbey, 
a distance of not less than thirteen or fourteen miles, but the old birds, 
notwithstanding the distance, discovered and fed them.— G. T. Ropz 
(Leiston, Suffolk). 
OrnitHoLocicaL NorEs FRoM THE IsLE or WicHr.—Since recording 
the occurrence last November of two Thick-knee Plovers in the Island 
(p. 260), I have heard of another being shot on the Nunwell estate, near 
Brading. Mr. Dimmick, the Ryde taxidermist, had a Pied Flycatcher, 
killed in the neighbourhood, brought to him in April; this being the second 
instance of its occurrence brought to my knowledge within a few years, 
it cannot be so rare a visitant to the Island as was supposed by Yarrell, 
who states that ‘Mr. Blyth had seen a specimen that was shot in the Isle 
of Wight.” Having lately been asked to identify a bird shot near Ryde in 
January, 1880, it proved to be a female Black Redstart. ‘The following 
