174 VARIOUS NOTES. 



NOTES— ORNITHOLOG Y. 



Flamborough Notes. — Arrivals of Migrants. — Several more of our 



summer visitants have arrived, and I do not remember a more favourable time 

 for migratory birds, taking this month on the whole. The wind has been from the 

 north-east nearly every day during the month ever since May came in. May 2nd, 

 the first occurrence of the Whitethroat (Sylvia sylvia) ; May 4th, Black-headed 

 Bunting (Ember iza scha niches)) ; May 6th, I saw several Redstarts (Rnticilla 

 J>h(vnicurus), some splendid old birds amongst them. I have not this season seen 

 one Blackstart (R. titkys), though I have been observing the birds for days. — 



Matthew Bailey, Flamborough, May 18th, 1896. 



Birds and Galls. — Last year the crop of spangle galls (Neuroterus lenticularis)^ 

 borne upon the leaves of the oak trees was very large in these parts. In autumn, 

 when leaves fell, the galls became loosened, and were thickly scattered on the 

 ground below the trees. So thickly did they fall upon a certain rocky knoll near 

 Ambleside, that the autumn rains washed them into little heaps within the crevices. 

 Just at this spot, I one day (Nov. 25) startled a few chaffinches {Fringilla calebs), 

 up from the ground, and on examining it, found that many of the minute round 

 flat galls had been neatly picked open and the larvae abstracted, so that only the 

 vegetable shell remained. This small white grub, by the way, appeared then to 

 have lately passed into the pupa stage (the juices of the tree being no longer at its 

 service) and though of a size scarcely comprehensible by the naked eye, made 

 seemingly dainty food for the chaffinch. After this I was interested to note what 

 raids were made upon it by the bird. A nomad flock of perhaps thirty to forty 

 birds would arrive, and pitch into the top boughs of the group of bare oaks, much 

 as bramblings will when seeking food, then, waiting till all was quiet, they would, 

 at a signal, drop to the ground, where they all ran lightly about, seeking and 

 picking. They came again and again, making apparently a regular beat of this 

 ground, till galls became scarcer and scarcer, and by the end of January hardly a 

 sound one was to be discovered. The flies therefore that will emerge in spring to 

 lay eggs in the swelling buds will be comparatively few. That the marsh tit 

 {Parns palustris), loves the larger grub of the cherry gall is certain, for it ranges 

 >ur coppices when these galls are abundant, breaking open and eating ; and it 

 seems to be the great tit (P. major) that splits open the marble gall for the same 

 purpose. But that the chaffinch finds food also in the gall was new to me, and 

 may be possibly so to others. — Mary L. Armitt, Ambleside, March 16th, 1896. 



NOTE—MOLLUSCA, 



Lincolnshire Notes. —During a recent visit to Louth (District No. 8 S. of the 

 Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union scheme), I found two species of Helix which 

 I had overlooked when collecting in the neighbourhood of that town, somewhat 

 frequently, during the years 1886-7; the one. Helix aculcata, occurred among 

 holly leaves on the borders of Maltby Wood, and the other, Helix lapicida, under 

 a piece of bark in Grisel-bottom, in Burwell Wood. In both these woods 

 Ctausilia rolfhii was again found in the spots from which it was reported in the 

 Journal of Conchology in 1S87. I may mention, also, that in District No. 3 S.W., 

 while walking from Barton-on-I lumber to South Ferriby — for the purpose of 

 visiting Reed's Island and its rats — I collected, on the chalky road-side banks, 

 Helix eantiana and Helix virgata, two snails which appear to be altogether 

 absent from the Louth neighbourhood. — H. W. K.EW, March 23rd, 1896. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



We have received the first number of *The Halifax Naturalist, 5 a journal which 

 is to appear every two months, and to be exclusively devoted to the natural history 

 and antiquities of the very extensive ancient parish of Halifax. The number 

 before us deserves every commendation, and is well printed, with an admirable 

 geological folding map of the parish, and a tastefully -designed pictorial w rapper. 



Naturalist, 



