350 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



killed among the trees in the churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields. It 

 was fully fledged, hut flew very feebly, and was evidently so faint from 

 fatigue or hunger that it would probably have fallen a prey to cats during 

 the night. The feathers bore no traces of its ever having been caged. I 

 may add that during the past summer two Quails have been seen in the 

 same churchyard, but these had evidently escaped from the Great Eastern 

 Bail way depot near at hand, whither the Quails are brought which supply 

 Leadeuhall Market. — J. H. Keen (Church House, Spitalfields). 



The Cuckoo calling in July.— For the past five years I have heard the 

 Cuckoo uttering its full call in this neighbourhood well into July ; but this 

 year I heard him up to the 13th of the month. What is the cause of 

 this alteration in the -bird's habits?— W. R. Tate (Walpole Vicarage, 

 Halesworth). 



[It can scarcely be regarded as anything more than an individual 

 peculiarity. — Ed.] 



Richardson's Skua in the Island of Barbados.— On the morning of 

 the 10th of July, 1888, there was brought to me alive a beautiful specimen 

 of Stercorarius crepidalus (Gmel.). It is iu full mature plumage, of the 

 dusky garb, without a single feather showing evidence of immaturity. 

 I should call it a typical adult specimen. On dissection it proved to be a 

 female, the ovaries enlarged, some of the rudimentary eggs being of the 

 size of No. 4 shot. The bird was rather thin ; its stomach contained fish- 

 bones and a green substance. The man who brought it to me stated that 

 he captured it in the water, with a hand-net, close to the shore, at daybreak 

 of the same day he brought it to me. There had been heavy squalls of 

 wind and rain over the island during the preceding night from N.E. 

 The bird was evidently worn out, or would not have allowed itself to be 

 captured in that manner. I am not aware of a prior instance on record of 

 the capture of any of the Stercorariina in the West Indies, though doubtless 

 their winter migration extends to the Caribbean Sea. The appearance of 

 the Arctic Skua, at this season of the year, on the shores of Barbados, is 

 certainly a most unlooked-for occurrence. At this season of the year this 

 species is engaged in rearing its young in high northern latitudes, and 

 what could have induced an adult bird to remain under the tropics at 

 midsummer is an enigma to me. I carefully dissected the bird, and found 

 no trace of any injury ; its plumage was in very good order, and the bird, 

 though rather thin, by no means emaciated, whilst the ovary was enlarged 

 and healthy. — H. W. Feilden (Barbados, July, 1888). 



Short-toed Lark in Sussex.— On July 27th I examined a living 

 example of this bird, Alauda brachydactyla, in the possession of Mr. Cooper, 

 the well-known taxidermist, of 28, Radnor Street, St. Luke's, who informed 

 me that it was taken in the net of a birdcatcher at Amberley, Sussex, 



