188 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
the morning of our visit, and gave us the following particulars. The 
right to net Pigeons on this ridge is rented from the Commune of Sare 
by twelve partners. Each partner provides a flagboy, who is paid forty 
francs for the forty days. The passage is supposed to last, say, from 
Michaelmas to Martinmas Day. These boys have to obey the chief, and 
each has to carry home his master’s share of Pigeons at the end of the day. 
There are five net men and the chief, among whom and the twelve partners 
the day’s catch is equally divided. The net men receive no pay. M. Goyéche 
said ‘‘ We spend a little money on the sport, but we amuse ourselves, and 
we have the Pigeons to eat all the year round. The average catch is about 
two hundred and thirty dozen, though three hundred and sixty dozen has 
been reached. On one occasion one hundred and twenty-four birds were 
taken in a single net at one flight, each of the other four nets taking 
a few. There are about ten of these palombiéres to the eastward as far 
as Luchon, and one to the westward, about a mile, at Echalar; in the 
latter case the nets are in Spain, while the chief and the flagboys are on 
French ground, and pay, therefore, to the nets we visited a tribute of two 
dozen Pigeons yearly. There is no other spot in the Commune of Sare * 
adapted for placing nets, though several have been tried, the desideratum 
being a level ridge with a rising ground to the east.—The Field. 
Scarcity of Greenfinches in Cumberland.—lI have read with interest 
Mr. Gurney’s note on the abundance of the Greenfinch during the past 
winter in the South and Kast of England. It is correlative to a scarcity 
of the species in the North—at all events in North Cumberland. I do not 
think I have seen half a dozen this winter, and my friend Mr. Senhouse 
considers that this species entirely withdraws from his district before winter. 
The number netted by London birdcatchers in autumn, when most birds 
are on flight, often far exceeds the demand, and I have seen the dealers 
thankful to sell them retail at a penny each.—H. A. Macruerson (Carlisle). 
Suggestions for Egg Collectors.—As the season is approaching when 
the egg collector will be once more able to add to his collection, I would 
like to call attention to a method of egg-blowing that I happened to hit on 
in 1882, and which I used with perfect success last year. Anyone who has 
been in the habit of blowing eggs in the usual way, either with the lips 
direct or through the medium of the blowpipe, will know the great difficulty 
there is in regulating the force with which one blows. This is especially 
the case in eggs in which incubation has just commenced: directly you 
begin to blow the albumen of the egg generally begins to flow pretty freely. 
Encouraged by the result you keep on blowing, but suddenly either the 
yelk-sac or the thickened yelk itself stops the flow of the contents, and 
bang goes your egg-shell. I know the number of accidents that occur to 
expert egg-blowers is small, but that they do occur occasionally I think even 
