38 NOTES BIRDS. 



every way ever since our first arrival at Seville, had undertaken to 

 forward it to England for us. The rest of the day and the following 

 day we spent at Seville, seeing the various places of interest in the 

 town, and of course went up to the top of the Giralda, where we saw 

 large numbers of the Lesser Kestrel and Swifts. I thought that 

 I could distinguish the Pallid Swift, as well as Cypsebis apiis, and 

 was assured that a few pale-coloured Swifts breed there together with 

 the Common Swift. 



On the evening of the 28th May we left Seville on our way 

 home, via Madrid and Paris, after having had a most enjoyable trip, 

 during which we collected over 500 eggs, besides a goodly number 

 of bird-skins, and other specimens. I must not omit to say that 

 I managed to keep the two young Pratincoles alive until after we left 

 Seville, but the shaking in the train between Seville and Madrid was 

 so great that they only survived the journey a very short time. 



We received every possible assistance both in Seville and in other 

 parts which Ave visited, and were especially indebted to Don Edmondo 

 Noel, of Seville, who procured permission for us to visit and collect 

 on several of the large estates or so-called ' cotos,' Avhich are reserved 

 for sporting purposes, and gave us a large map of the river and the 

 surrounding country, which proved of the greatest use to us. 



AZOTES— BIRDS. 



White Variety of the Little Gull at Flamborough. — On October 29th 

 last a white variety of the Little Gull [Lanis miiuitits) was shot by a fisherman off 

 P'lamborough Head, and was secured by iMr. M. Eailey for Mr. John Marshall's 

 collection of varieties. It is not an albino, as the terminal bar on the tail is visible ; 

 the occiput and ear-coverts are faintly mottled, and the hue of the mantle is just 

 perceptible. — T- H. Gukney. Jun., Keswick Hall, Norwich, January 6th, 1890. 



Probable Occurrence of Phylloscopus superciliosus (Cm.) near Spurn. — 



I omitted to mention in my notes of last month that Mr. Hewetson, of Leeds, wrote 

 me in October describing a small leaf-warbler seen and watched by him at early 

 morning in his garden at Easington, and which he considered at the time could 

 only be referred to this species. Subsequently Mr. Hewetson had an opportunity 

 of .seeing an Heligoland example of the Yellow-browed Warbler, which I have 

 in a small case on the wall of my room, on seeing which he exclaimed at once, 

 and before I had spoken, ' that is the bird I saw in my garden at Easington, the 

 same conspicuous streak over the eye, and the two bars on the wing. '—John 

 COKDEAUX, Great Cotes, Ulceby, December 20th, 1889. 



The Yorkshire Records for the Great Black Woodpecker. — Myths often 

 die hard. Though the occurrence of the abt)ve Iiird at Ripley in March 1846 has. 

 been treated as more than doubtful in Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck's ' Handbook 

 of Yorkshire Yertebrata ' (iSSi), and elsewhere, it appears periodically to renew 

 its youth like the phoenix. I hnd a reference to it in the September iVat.uralisi 

 of the present year, page 257. I can only say that, when resident in Yorkshire, 

 I went, at the suggestion of Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., to Ripley, and made the 

 minutest inquiries, which satisfied me (and I believe Mr. Gurney) that if the bird 

 in question was not the Greater Spotted Woodpecker (which appears to have done 

 duty for Piciis uiai-titts on several occasions) it was not a Woodpecker at all. — 

 H, H. Slater, Irchester Yicarage, Northants, 



Naturalist, 



