NOTES AND QUERIES. 505 



(p. 471), by some carelessness of mine, the expanse of wings is given as five 

 feet, whereas it should have been five feet eight inches— just one inch 

 longer than the one since obtained. — J. Cuxlingford (University Museum, 

 Durham). 



Jack Snipe in Oxfordshire in Summer. — Mr. Wyatt, taxidermist, 

 Banbury, recently showed me a Jaek Snipe which he received about the 

 end of July. It was brought in by a boy, who picked it up dead near 

 Banbury. From a wound on its head it appeared to have struck against 

 the telegraph-wires. It was in a very emaciated condition, and I fancy 

 must have been an injured bird unable to migrate in spring. — Oi.ivicr V. 

 Aplin (Great Bourton, near Banbury). 



FISHES. 



Habits of the Pilchard. — In the latter part of the season for Pilchards 

 (October and November) the shoals come from the eastward into St. Ives 

 Bay, and pass thence off St. Just, round the Laud's End, into Mount's Bay 

 and the English Channel. A friend much interested in the Pilchard fisheries 

 on the north coast of Cornwall (Mr. G. R. Pollard, of Bodieve, near Wade- 

 bridge), writes me that the fish yearly arrive off the headlands and in the 

 bays at and on either side of Trevose Head, near Padstow, coming from 

 the westward, and that, after a pause there, they break up into small shoals 

 and go to the westward. He curiously confirms an old belief in the following 

 words:— "If ever so large a quantity of Pilchards appears to be in the 

 bay, if it comes to thunder and lightning, they are never seen after." We 

 attribute the same result to the firing of cannon at the batteries, and I have 

 myself seen dynamite produce the effect. Mr. Pollard also sends the 

 following exceedingly interesting and curious note:— "There is another 

 curious thing connected with Pilchards — after they are in shoals they appear 

 to keep to their own party. Eleven years since our *huer,' seeing shoals of 

 fish passing, put the master seiner on them; he directed the seine-boats to 

 shoot the seine, but the men made a bungle of it, and got her fouled in 

 getting over the side of the boat, and were so long about it that they only 

 secured the end or latter portion of the shoal ; but there happened to be 

 another shoal just behind, and in bringing the net around they took in the 

 leading part of the latter shoal as well. Now we had those fish in the seine 

 from the 23rd to the 30th of October, and those two portions of different 

 shoals never joined or mixed all the time ; we could distinctly see two spots 

 of colour, and on 'tucking' would sometimes get one and sometimes the 

 other." Capt. W. Eddy, a mine-agent of great experience in West Cornwall, 

 and also well acquainted with Pilchards and their fisheries, spent several 

 years in managiug some mines between Skibbereen and Baltimore, in the 

 southern corner of Ireland, aud overlooking the sea. Here he observed 



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