HODGSON: ALBINO WHEATEAR IN CUMBERLAND. II 



Fire-crested Wren {Regulus iguicapillus). I have a very 

 beautiful adult male, killed on November 4th, by a boy 

 with a stone near Easington. The white streak over the eye 

 and the black streak through the eye will at once distinguish it 

 from its congener. The beak also is rather stouter than in the 

 Gold-crest, and there is a conspicuous golden-green patch on 

 the side of the neck. At Heligoland they are in autumn always 

 later than the Goldcrests, and in spring earlier. 



Black Redstart {Ruticilla Htys). November 6th, an adult male 

 was seen in a garden at Easington. 



Swallow {Hirundo rusticd) and Martin {Chelidon nrbica). On 

 November loth, I saw a Swallow flying under Kilnsea Cliff, 

 and the same day a Martin hawking near the village of Kilnsea. 



SEA-FOWL. 

 I have recently seen and examined the following birds obtained 

 at sea, and brought in by fishing-smacks to Grimsby : — 

 Pomatorhine Skua {Stercorarius pomatorlmms). A young 

 bird, of the light variety, in first plumage. In this the foiv 

 central tail feathers, two of which are very broad, are equal 

 in length, and project half an inch beyond the next or third 

 feather on each side. 

 Great Shearwater {Fuffitms major). One caught by a hook. 

 Iceland Gull {Lams leucopterus). A young bird. In this the 

 legs and feet are pale flesh colour, bill brownish-black at 

 tip, the anterior part pink, and quite as deep in colour as in the 

 bill of Anser hrachyrhynchus. 

 In forwarding these notes to The Naturalist, I beg to acknowledge 

 my indebtedness to Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh, of Grainsby Hall, for 

 information sent in letters, on the birds seen by him during the 

 autumn on the coast of Lincolnshire; also to Mr. Philip Loten, of 

 Easington, for personal information on the Spurn district. 



NOTE—ORNITHOLOG Y. 



An Albino Wheatear in Cumberland. — In the early spring of the present year 

 (April 15th, 1889), the writer was taking a stroll along the beach known as the 

 North Shore, at Workington, near the mouth of the river Derwent, when his atten- 

 tion was arrested by the movement of a flock of Wheatears {Saxicola anaiithe). 

 The birds, about a dozen in number, were all males, resplendent in full breeding 

 plumage, and apparently liut newly arrived. One of the number was a strikingly 

 handsome bird, his snowy poll readily distinguishing him from his fellows. 

 Except a slight smirching of colour upon the outer wing covers, his plumage was 

 stainless as the ' untrodden snow ' on the plains of Linden. He probably found a 

 mate, but not in the immediate neighbourhood, though several pairs nest in the 

 slag banks of the iron furnaces hard by, or among the stacks of pig iron, as I 

 saw him n o more. — W. Hodgso.m, A.L.S., Workington, August i6th, 1889. 

 Jan. iSgo. 



