160 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



testifies to its occasional occurrence in Devonshire, and Mr. A. G. 

 More has noticed the same thing in the Isle of Wight. 



One of the rarest birds, not only in Dorsetshire, but in 

 the British Islands generally, is the Cream-coloured Courser. 

 According to our author, the present Lord Digby, when following 

 the hounds in the autumn of 1853, observed one on Batcombe 

 Down, and the next day the Earl of Ilchester sent his keeper 

 Walton, who found and shot it. It is now preserved in the 

 Melbury collection. 



In regard to wildfowl, it is interesting to learn that not only 

 Duck and Teal breed regularly in Dorsetshire, but that the 

 nesting of the Pochard, Shoveller, and Tufted Duck there 

 has been also satisfactorily ascertained. The account given of 

 "Decoys" in the county is, naturally, taken from Sir B. Payne 

 Gallwey's work on ' Decoys ; their History, Construction, and 

 Management' — that being the latest as well as the most exhaustive 

 book of reference on that subject. Amongst the rarer wildfowl 

 which have been killed from time to time in the county we notice 

 the Bed-crested Pochard, Ferruginous Duck, Eider, and Surf 

 Scoter. 



In a " Catalogue of the Mammalia, Birds, &c, found in 

 Dorsetshire," contributed by the late Mr. J. C. Dale to ' The 

 Naturalist,' edited by Neville Wood (vol. iii., 1837, p. 181), and 

 which is little more than a bare list of names, the Hooded 

 Merganser, Mergus cucullatas, is included. This, says Mr. Mansel 

 Pleydell, is probably a mistake, as no particulars of any kind are 

 afforded, which, in the case of so rare a bird, would scarcely have 

 been omitted intentionally. So far as he is aware, there is no 

 evidence of the occurrence of this species in Dorsetshire. 



The account which he gives of Lord Ilchester's Swannery at 

 Abbotsbury will be read with interest, especially as it embodies 

 statistics relating to the number of Swans preserved there in 

 different years, the average number, as he tells us, being about 

 800. As a frontispiece to the book, we have a view in this 

 Swannery, from a photograph taken there last summer. The 

 other illustrations (of which, with the author's permission, two 

 are here reproduced) have been drawn and engraved by Mr. 

 G. E. Lodge, and are all very characteristic of the birds they 

 represent. 



