NOTES AND QUERIES. 257 



Swift returning to former Nesting-place. — Between 7 and 8 p.m. on 

 the 27th April a Swift made its appearance here at Looe, and, from its 

 actions, I think there can he no douht it must have been here in former 

 years. There was a hole in the wall of our old church which has for a long 

 series of years been used as a nesting-place for Swifts. Since the autumnal 

 migration of last year the old church has been pulled down, and the walls 

 of the new church and framework of the roof have been rebuilt. My 

 attention was first called to the Swift by the many attempts it made to find 

 the old hole, having all the action of being about to dart into the hole as I 

 have seen the Swifts do for years past ; this action was continued, I think, 

 during my observation of half an hour, as many as fifty times, a very cold 

 east wind blowing at the time. I think this clearly shows great instinct to 

 cause the bird to return to its old quarters, but little reason in not finding 

 out more readily the hole had been removed. When I left off observing, 

 the bird was still pursuing the same course. I did not see another Swift 

 until the 4th May, again a single bird. On May 8th there were four 

 Swifts here.— Stephen Clogg (Looe). 



Iceland Gull at Aldeburgh.— Writing under date of Dec. 14th, 1882, 

 Mr. Whistler, of Aldeburgh, offered me, in the flesh, afresh-killed example 

 of the Iceland Gull, killed in the neighbourhood, " in magnificent plumage." 

 Mr. Whistler adds in his note, which at the time I mislaid, that so fine an 

 example had not been obtained locally since 1860. If I recollect right the 

 last Aldeburgh specimen was obtained in 1876, at least so far as records 

 go. — H. A. Macpherson (Carlisle). 



Cormorants resorting to Fresh-water Lake in Summer. — The abun- 

 dance of barren individuals of these birds formerly misled me much. 

 Twenty years ago, and probably to the present day, a number of Cormorants 

 inhabited a fresh-water lake at Castlecoote, near Enniskillen, during the 

 summer. The lake is about forty miles from the sea. The birds roosted 

 on a low plantation of alders (?) on an islet, and it was a bitter disappoint- 

 ment to me, as a birdsnesting schoolboy, to find they did not breed. I was 

 an early enough visitor, too, since I have taken Heron's eggs on the lake 

 in February, and watched the nests of the naturalised Greylag Geese on 

 these waters frequently. Year after year the Cormorants were there, 

 whether barren or immature I am unable to decide, but I never obtained 

 their eggs. I remember also to have examined a rookery on the shores of 

 the lake, in the hope of finding Cormorants there, for, as Thompson has 

 remarked (vol.iii., p. 244), they sometimes build on trees. — H. Chichester 

 Hart (Dublin). 



Pale Variety of the Jay. — A Jay, lately killed, has come into my 

 possession in which all the parts usually brown are nearly white, and much 

 of the usual black is also replaced by white, as is also a part of the blue 



