386 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



me to point out that we are really entirely of one mind on the subject. In 

 the district westward of Silloth, with which Mr. Armistead dealt, the 

 Tufted Duck is a scarce bird ; but in the neighbourhood of the upper 

 Solway — that is, from Silloth to Gretna — the Tufted Duck is fairly plentiful, 

 and can be found at all times (save in the breeding season) on one particular 

 loch. When our volume on the ' Birds of Cumberland' was being written 

 I enquired of the Heysham family for any existing MSS. of the late 

 Mr. T. C. Heysham, of Carlisle. No such papers could be found, and I was 

 obliged to fall back on the information which Mr. Heysham included in a 

 few articles published in 'Loudon's Magazine,' and — a little earlier — in 

 the pages of the ' Philosophical Magazine.' A few weeks since I made 

 fresh application to the representatives of Mr. Heysham, and this time 

 with success. Mr. Heysham Mounsey, of Castletown, is still unable to find 

 any of his late relative's memoranda; but Mr. Mounsey, of Carlisle, has 

 most kindly made a diligent search in the family archives, and though the 

 greater part of Mr. Heysham's writings were committed to the flames by 

 his executors, yet we have left much of his correspondence with Mr. Yarrell, 

 Mr. Gurney, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Gould, Mr. Proctor, and Mr. Doubleday. 

 We have also letters from many local correspondents, and fuller data as to 

 the rarer birds obtained in Mr. Heysham's time than I ever hoped for. 

 The notes which refer to the nesting of the Dotterel would furnish materials 

 for an excellent article. I have alluded to these circumstances because 

 I think they will interest many, but I only wish to notice one point. In 

 the ' Birds of Cumberland ' (p. 106) we chronicled the fact that a Tufted 

 drake was shot on the Solway a few summers ago in the middle of July. 

 Mr. Heysham proves to have anticipated us, with a note of a Tufted drake 

 shot on the Solway on July 15th, 1838, or some thirty years earlier. I will 

 only add that when male ducks are killed in England in the middle of July 

 the natural inference would be that they have bred in the vicinity. — 

 H. A. Macpherson. 



Roller and other Birds in the Isle of Wight. — While walking along 

 the old channel of the Yare, which runs through what was once the upper 

 part of Brading Harbour, Isle of Wight, on July 25th last, I came upon 

 an old black-breasted Dunlin, accompanied by four young birds in first 

 plumage ; they were extremely tame, and by crawling through the rough 

 grass and thistles I was able to get within ten paces of them. It seems 

 improbable that these were bred on the moors of Cornwall, as the tendency 

 of such would, I suppose, he to move westward and then south in autumn 

 rather than to the east, as they must have done had they been of Cornish 

 origin, and although it is stated in " Yarrell" that the DunHn is not known 

 to breed in Dorsetshire nor along the south coast, I cannot help thinking 

 that this brood may have been reared in the marshes of Dorset, or more 

 probably Sussex. It would be an unusually early date for migrants from 



