314 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
winter, however, it has made its appearance in considerable 
numbers, driven probably from its usual continental haunts by 
the severity of the season. Several individuals have been shot 
on the banks of the Tyne, as well as in some other places in this 
neighbourhood. Some birds not generally considered migratory 
have likewise appeared in more than usual numbers this winter : 
—of these may be mentioned the greater spotted Woodpecker and 
the Kingfisher. Mr. John Hancock shot two specimens of the 
Pigmy Curlew (Z'ringa sabarquata) out of a flock on Whitley 
Sands in September last. Tengmalm’s Owl (Sirix Tengmalmi J, 
another rare visitant, has also been met with: one occurred on 
the coast north of Whitburn, and a second individual was shot 
near Rothbury in April last. These specimens, which are male 
and female, are now in the possession of Mr. John Hancock. A 
young male bird of the Goshawk (Accipiter palumbarius) was 
shot in Northumberland this year. The red Viper has been added 
to the Northumberland Fauna by Mr. F. H. Salvin, who cap- 
tured a specimen on Cheviot in October last. The specific 
difference between this, which is supposed to be the Coluber chersea 
of Linneus, and the common viper has not been satisfactorily 
made out. 
Another specimen of that remarkable fish, the Gymnetrus 
Banksti, the account of which forms so conspicuous an ornament 
of our last year’s Transactions, has lately occurred at Redcar, a 
place so nearly within the limits of our district that it may not 
inappropriately be mentioned here. It was alive when caught, 
and measured 11 feet in length, somewhat less than the indivi- 
dual got at Cullercoats, which in colour and markings it appears 
to have closely resembled. It has been purchased for the British 
Museum. A less conspicuous, though scarcely less rare British 
fish, the Centrolophus pompilius, or Black Fish, was caught last 
autumn at Cullercoats, and, happening to be there at the time, I 
fortunately secured it for our Museum. The only British locality 
hitherto recorded for this fish is the coast of Cornwall, on which 
a few individuals have been obtained at rare intervals, amounting, 
I believe, to no more than five since its first discovery in the time 
of Borlaise, nearly 2 century ago. Its occurrence on this coast, 
