NOTES AND QUERIES. 263 



butcher who cut it up said that the gullet was not larger than that of a 

 calf, and far too small to swallow a mackerel. — F. H. Balkwill (3, Prince's 

 Square, Plymouth). 



BIBDS. 



A Puffin in London.— On May 20th I received the skin of a Puffin, 

 Fratercula arctica, which, strange to say, flew into one of the bedrooms of 

 the house No. 45, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, on the 16th of that 

 month. It was alive when found, and the owner of the house, Sir John 

 Walrond, Bart., had it killed, and presented it to a lady, who kindly 

 forwarded it to me. It is curious that I rented this very house in the 

 winters of 1884-5 and 1885-6, and no more distinguished visitor than a 

 stray House Sparrow ever favoured me with a visit there. — Lilford. 



[From the nature of its haunts, and its strictly oceanic habits, the 

 Puffin is one of the last birds one would expect to meet with in the 

 Metropolitan county. Graves, in vol. ii. of his 'British Ornithology,' 

 mentions the capture of a Puffin on the Thames, near Chelsea, in 1812, 

 remarkinfT: — " We are at a loss to conceive by what unaccountable accident 

 this bird should have wandered so far from tlie coast, as the nearest place 

 to which the species is known to resort is the cliffs at Dover."— Ed.] 



Puffin on the Thames in July.— I have in my collection a specimen of 

 the Puffin, Fratercula arctica, which was shot on the Thames between 

 Erith and Gravesend on June 12th, 1885. The beak of the bird is very 

 abnormally shaped. — Riley Fortune (Harrogate). 



[See an article on the moult of the bill in the Puffin, published in ' The 

 Zoologist' for July, 1878.— Ed.] 



The Missel Thrush occasionally a Bird of Prey.— During the dry 

 weather which prevailed this spring, with easterly winds, I one day saw a 

 Missel Thrush fly up to the nest of a common Song Thrush, take out a 

 young one and carry it off to her own nest and feed her young ones with it. 

 How she broke it up I could not see, but she appeared to be pecking it to 

 pieces; and she continued her visits to the Song Thrush's nest until she 

 had carried off every one of the four young birds which it contained. The 

 old Song Thrushes made a great outcry while this was going on, which 

 attracted my attention to the spot. I may add that the young Missel 

 Thrushes were nearly fledged, and the young Song Thrushes only just 

 hatched.— E. A. Sanford (Nynehead Court, Wellington, Somerset). 



Kestrel and Slow-worm.— My keeper's attention was recently directed 

 to a small patch of gorse by a Blackbird's cry of alarm announcing 

 the vicinity of some foe. He cautiously approached the spot, and 

 found himself within a couple of yards of a male Kestrel in the act of 

 dealing deadly blows upon the head and neck of a slow-worm, whose 

 detached tail was wriggling about on the grass a few inches off, in contrast 



