SOME NATURAL HISTORY RECORDS. 



425 



Cuckoo (Oarnon Valley) .. ,, 12tli. 

 Do. (Kennall Valley) .. „ 21st. 



White-throat „ 21st. 



House Martin .. .. .. May 1st. 



Black-cap . . . . . . ,, 4th. 



Swift . . . . . . . . ,, 5th. 



Night-jar . . . . . , ,, 6th. 



Night-jar's first " song " .. ,, loth. 



Sedge Warbler . . .. .. ,, 12th. 



About the return of the cuckoo to these parts I have long 

 noticed a singular feature. As the crow flies, the Carnon and 

 Kennall Valleys are nowhere more than three miles apart. In 

 appearance the two places are as unlike as are the tropics and 

 the arctic circle — Kennall Valley being well wooded and 

 delightfully sheltered, the Carnon Valley one dreary stretch of 

 mine wavshings and muddy rivers, without as much as a single 

 bit of copse to break the uniform appearance of desolation. 

 Yet, year after year, with an unvarying regularity, the cuckoo 

 appears in the Carnon Valley from ten days to a fortnight before 

 it is heard at Ponsanooth, and on through the summer it is more 

 abundant at the former place than at the latter. Assuming, as 

 seems natural, that the birds which frequent the two valleys 

 reach our shore near Falmouth, and that they find their way up 

 the Fal, thence along Eestronguet creek to Devoran, the mystery 

 is why, when they arrive at the latter place, they should prefer 

 the windings of the bleak and barren Carnon Valley to those of 

 the sheltered and fertile Kennall Valley. Possibly enough 

 this local behaviour of the cuckoo can be explained by the 

 physical features of its winter quarters. If in warmer climes 

 it frequents barren wastes, it is easy to see why it adopts the 

 same course when it reaches our own shores. I offer this 

 suggestion tentatively. 



2. — New British Plants. 

 In field botany the most important discovery of the year 

 hails from Cornwall. When working the Loe Pool on August 

 8th, for representatives of the order Characece, the Eev. G. R. 

 Bullock-Webster, of the Palace,- Ely, who was accompanied by 

 Mr, C. P. Hurst, of Oxford, dredged a plant from Penrose Creek 



