NOTES AND QUERIES. 249 
at St. Michael’s-on-Wyre; and 64 at a mill near here. Mr. A. Edmonds, 
naturalist, Preston, informs me that 892 Swallows, 65 House Martins, 
8 Swifts, 2 Sand Martins, and 10 Landrails, nearly 500 birds in all, were 
brought to him for preservation between Tuesday, May 11th, and the 
following Tuesday. All these had been picked up dead. Some idea may 
be formed of the thousands that must have succumbed to the cold and 
absence of insect-food during those days, in this district alone, when one 
considers the comparatively small proportion of these poor victims to our 
treacherous climate that would be found, and the still smaller proportion of 
those found which would be taken to one individual birdstuffer to be 
preserved. A keen observer of birds in this neighbourhood told me 
that he really thought nine Swallows out of every ten had perished.—W. 
FitzHERBERT-BROcKHOLEs (Claughton-on-Brock, Garstang, Lancashire). 
Screaming of the Cock Pheasant.—Mr. Cambridge Phillips, in last 
month’s ‘ Zoologist’ (p. 218), refers to the screaming of a cock Pheasant 
when caught by adog. I have noticed the same thing several times when 
the bird, being winged, has got under thorns, fern, or other cover, and been 
pulled out by a dog or by hand. ‘The sound is very like the noise made 
by the domestic fowl when caught, but much more shrill. I have heard 
the hen Pheasant make something of the same sound, but not so loud.— 
J. Wuiraker (Rainworth Lodge, Notts,. 
Unrecorded Occurrence of the Blue-throat in East Lothian. 
Through the kindness of Mr. James M‘Leod, of Belhaven, Dunbar, I am 
able to record the occurrence of an example of this bird, which that gentle- 
man shot in his garden at Belhaven at the end of May or beginning of 
June, 1868. He had it preserved, and it has been in his possession ever 
since that time. The upper plumage is greyish brown; the chin and 
upper part of breast is azure-blue, centre spot yellowish brown, with pure 
white below, under the azure-blue is a narrow band of black, which is 
followed by a broader band of rust-brown ; plumage of the under parts dirty 
white. Mr. M‘Leod informed me that the Common Redstart, Ruticilla 
phenicurus, was more numerous than usual in this vicinity when he shot 
this specimen. The Blue-throat is not mentioned in Gray’s ‘ Birds of the 
West of Scotland,’ nor in Turnbull’s ‘ Birds of East Lothian,’ but in the 
4th edition of Yarrell’s ‘ British Birds’ (vol. i. p. 3852) it is stated that 
“Mr. Gray informed the editor that a cock was caught on board of a fishing- 
boat off Aberdeen, May 16th, 1872.”— Grorer Pow (90, High Street, 
Dunbar, N.B.). 
Swallows dying of Cold in May.—During the past week we have had 
a sharp reminder that ‘“ Winter, lingering, chills the lap of May,” for on 
May 12th and 13th a strong N.E. gale was blowing, accompanied on the 
first-named day with a drenching rain. In the western part of the county 
