376 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ruficollis, Temminck, which was shot at Killingworth, near Newcastle, as 

 recorded by him in 'The Ibis' for 1862, p. 39. This species occurs in 

 Spain and Portugal, the South of France, and Malta, and is common in 

 North- Western Africa. — Ed.] 



Note on an Egg of the Kea. — After many years of fruitless 

 search and enquiry, through shepherds and musterers, by the kind- 

 ness of Mr. H. Campbell I am at last in possession of an egg of 

 this alpine parrot (Nestor notabilis, Gould). The specimen, with three 

 others, was taken from a nesting-place in an almost inaccessible fastness 

 of rocks, high up the mountains near Lake Wauaka. One egg was 

 broken in getting it out ; two of those remaining have also come to 

 grief. Placed among a series of eggs of the Kaka, N. meridionalis, 

 it can be picked out at once ; it is larger, rougher, the surface being 

 granulated, dotted over irregularly, with small pits, a very few slight chalky 

 incrustations towards the smaller end. The shell is very stout and thick, 

 exceeding in that respect auy examples that I have seen of the eggs of the 

 Kaka. It is broadly ovoid, measuring one inch seven lines in length ; in 

 width it is one inch three lines. — T. H. Potts (Obinitahi, June 5, 1883). 



[The Kaka, or Brown Parrot, Nestor meridionalis, lays four white eggs 

 in the hole of a tree. They are deposited on the decayed wood, without 

 any other material by way of nest. — Ed.] 



Dipper singing in Winter. — Reverting to the observations on the 

 Dipper singing during frost (p. 78 et seq.), I may say that the Messrs. 

 Duckworth, of Carlisle, have heard it in full song in every month of the 

 year. Until last year they had never heard it in November (as stated in a 

 paper read by Mr. W. Duckworth before the Carlisle Field Club); but, in 

 November, 1882, they both heard it in song on more than one occasion. 

 Mr. W. Duckworth reminds me that though Dippers sing throughout the 

 year, each individual, of course, sings for a much briefer period. He has 

 also uoticed that the Dippers of the "fell" streams often nest later than 

 those whose breeding quarters are at a lower elevation. For my own part 

 I have only heard the Dipper siug during winter, but then my experience 

 of the bird is very different to the protracted attention which Messrs. Duck- 

 worth have always paid to it. — H. A. Macpherson (Carlisle). 



Gannet caught in a Net. — On the 25th July, while returning from 

 sea-fishing within a mile of the Glandore Pier, I was much interested by 

 the tactics of a Gannet, Sulci bassana, Briss. The bird was ranging almost 

 side to side of the harbour, and every now and then would dart down after 

 a fish, plunging into the water with such impetus as to throw up spray to 

 the height of five or six feet. My boatman told me that some days before 

 a Gannet had been found entaugled in a mackerel-net. He stated that this 

 bird breeds on " the Stags," an isolated rock in the ocean, off Toe Head 



