60 Notes and Comments. 
MORE ABOUT THE ‘NEW’ BIRD. 
With further reference to the Notes and Comments in our 
January issue, we wrote to Mr. Hamilton pointing out that the 
bird he sold as a Little Bunting caught at Ripon, proved to be 
nothing of the sort, and suggesting that the price paid should 
be returned. A reply was received, obviously in Mr. Hamilton’s 
handwriting, but ostensibly written by someone else, in which 
he stated that ‘Mr. Hamilton as (sic) not had anything to do 
with the address since you bought the bird.’ 
THE POLICE. 
We therefore communicated with the police who informed 
us that they had previously received complaints as to Mr. 
Hamilton’s business methods; that his letters contained in- 
accuracies ; that, though apparently written on his behalf, they 
were really written by himself, and that he was at home. They 
further informed us that Mr. Hamilton was ill and in poor 
circumstances. 
AN APOLOGY. 
As Mr. Hamilton had been visited by the police, we felt that 
the time had arrived to get a statement from him, with an 
apology. In reply to our letter he states, under date January 
roth, ‘I did not know a Lesser Black Headed Bunting, never 
having had one to my knowledge . . . and as to Ripon, one 
is apt in trade to make the most and get the most. . . . I very 
much regret selling you the bird incorrectly described . . . 
part of the other information (as to the locality) was only 
business in sale.’ 
MORAL. 
After his various lapses of memory and _ terminological 
inexactitudes, this dealer therefore admits that his localities 
are tacked on to his specimens ‘ merely for business reasons,’ 
and in order ‘to make the most and get the most.’ Such a 
method was doubtless adopted for the new Halifax Black- 
Headed Bunting, seen in the flesh in Sussex and now preserved 
in a Sussex Museum. Having thus fairly well proved that in 
this instance the record was wrong, there is quite a suspicion, 
in fact more than a suspicion, as to the bona fides of other 
recent records of new British birds, ‘seen in the flesh.’ We 
certainly think naturalists will now be justified in deleting 
several recent ‘new records’ from their lists. 
—: 0 :— 
In Lincolnshire Notes and Queries for October, published in January, 
is an account of ‘Implements of the Stone Age, in the City and County 
Museum, Lincoln.’ It is illustrated by four plates. We feel sure that the 
anonymous author is correct in assuming that the one palolithic imple- 
ment found in the county, now in the British Museum, was a compara- 
tively recent importation into the county. 
Naturalist, 
