NOTES AND QUERIES. 107 
lined with hair and feathers. The bird, which was seen to leave the place 
was described as “a small brown bird with a red tail.” ‘ihe egg, which is 
unfortunately broken, is undoubtedly that of the Common Redstart. Is 
not this a most uncommon occurrence? The Redstart has hitherto been 
looked upon as a summer visitor only, coming in April nd leaving about 
September. Yet here are two birds, which have apparently passed the 
winter with us, and actually have a nest and two cggs on the 25th of 
December. Has any similar case been known? I cannot hear of one in 
this district—W. J. CLarKxe (35, Londesborough Road, Scarborough). 
[Were it not for the assertion that the egg examined was undoubtedly 
that of the Common Redstart, we should have been inclined to suspect 
that it was that of the Wren, this bird, like the Robin, occasionally 
nesting during the winter months when the season is a mild one.—Eb.| 
Little Gull, near Penzance.—I have lately (Feb. 15th) received from 
St. Just, to the west of Penzance, an adult specimen of the Little Gull, 
Larus minutus. It weighed a little under 7 oz., and measured 13 in. from 
tip of bill to end of tail feathers, the expanse of wing being 2 ft. 9 in., or 
more than double the length of the bird. It is now being “ set up,” and 
will soon be on view should any one like to call on me and see it.—THomas 
CornisH (Penzance). 
Recollections of the Bustard in Suffolk.—I had lately the pleasure 
of a conversation with perhaps the only person who can claim to have seen 
the indigenous race of Suffolk Bustards, both alive and dead, as well as 
_ their nests and eggs. Mr. W. Bilson, formerly a bird-stuffer in Bury, who 
was born in 1808, happened to call on me, and while looking over my birds 
the Great Bustard was mentioned. Mr. Bilson well remembers as a lad 
seeing the eggs in a Bustard’s nest at Icklingham, and as the then owner 
of the Icklingham estate was very careful to preserve the few remaining 
Bustards, the eggs in question were, to the best of my informant’s know- 
ledge, left undisturbed. This ‘would probably be between 1818 and 1825. 
He also told me that a man once sold his father a hen Bustard freshly 
killed for £3, and subsequently offered him a fine cock bird for £10, 
but the two could not come to terms, Mr. Bilson, sen. declining to go 
beyond £7; however, the owner of the Bustard obtained his price from 
another customer. He can also recollect once seeing near Thetford a cock 
Bustard, flying with (as he expressed it) “the pouch hanging down.” 
Whether or not the pouch is perceptible during flight, or whether the long 
neck-feathers were mistaken for the pouch, I must leave for those to decide 
who have seen the Great Bustard on the wing.—Juuian G. Tuck (Tostock 
Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 
[The hen Bustard bought by the father of Mr. Tuck’s informant was 
doubtless that trapped at Hriswell, as mentioned by the late Mr. Stevenson 
