108 THE ZOOLOGISY. 
when a whale is taken off the coast, it shall be divided between the king 
and the queen. The king shall have the head, and the queen the tail, in 
order, say our ancient records, that the queen’s wardrobe may be supplied 
with whalebone. We are not told how much whalebone her Majesty ever 
succeeded in extracting from a whale’s tail.—Eb.} 
Grey Seal captured near Colchester. — My friend Mr. Southwell has 
drawn my attention to an account of a Grey Seal, Halichwrus gryphus, 
recorded in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for 1841 
(vol. vii.) as having been captured a few years previously to that date near 
Colchester by some fishermen in their nets. The specimen was of con- 
siderable age and blind, and was dissected and presented by the late 
Professor Clark, father of the present custodian of that institution, to the 
Cambridge Anatomical Museum, as appears by the Catalogue, 1862, p. 81. 
As the exact geographical range of auimals is now exciting great attention, 
both Mr. Southwell and myself think the fact of this Seal occurring on the 
Essex coast of sufficient importance to warrant a re-insertion of the record 
in ‘The Zoologist,’ where it will probably come under the notice of a 
greater number of naturalists than in its present ancient entombment.— 
Henry Laver (Colchester). 
BIRDS. 
Reported occurrence of the Short-toed Lark in Kent.—Since 
Mr. Macpherson doubts whether the Short-toed Lark reported by me 
(p. 31) is a British specimen, it may be as well to state the facts on which 
my opinion was founded :—/irst, the birdcatcher informs me that he never 
has, nor has had, any birds from abroad; and the absence of Goldfinches, 
Bullfinches, and Siskins, as well as of foreign bird-cages, would lead me to 
believe him ; secondly, he lives in the neighbourhood of Guy’s Hospital, in 
which poor locality, if he had such birds, he would not be able to sell them ; 
thirdly, I think it very unlikely that a poor man would spend five shillings 
for preserving and casing a bird, on the mere probability of being able, on 
some future occasion, to deceive a bird collector. That the birdcatcher did 
not have the Lark preserved with the idea of profit is the more evident 
since it was in the house of a friend, and was with reluctance sent for. 
When the bird arrived he showed little inclination to sell it; in fact, he 
told me that he would not have parted with it a few months before. Should 
it be supposed that this reluctance was assumed with the idea of obtaining 
a larger sum, I would remark that I paid very little for it, and would 
willingly have given double the amount asked. All but two of the Short- 
toed Larks obtained in England having been trapped by birdcatchers, it 
seems to me that, in the opinion of Mr. Macpherson, “ the authenticity 
of the specimens amounts at most only to a probability of their being 
British.”"—Tuxo. Fisuer (Guy's Hospital). 
