30 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and bushes growing there include the sweet-briar (in abundance), 

 Gotoneaster simonsi, C. microphylla, Mahonia aquifolia, Cratcegzcs 

 jyyracanthus, elder, whitethorn, wild rose, &c. For many years a 

 number of Greenfinches have come regularly to feed on the fruit of 

 the sweet-briar. I have sometimes watched them from a window at 

 a distance of only a few feet, and it has always appeared to me that 

 they eat the seeds only, rejecting the soft red pulp. I have seen 

 these birds, too, devouring the berries of the winter-thorn, C. pyra- 

 canthus, and also the pretty apple-like fruit of Gotoneaster simonsi, 

 which they apparently deal with in the same way as the sweet-briar 

 hips. I believe, however, that these last are preferred to any other 

 kind of berry. They are also much relished by both Cole-Tits and 

 Marsh-Tits. Long-tailed Field-Mice consume large quantities of the 

 fruit of both wild-rose and sweet-briar. To get at the ripe berries of 

 the privet, the Bullfinch forgets his shyness and ventures into 

 gardens containing hedges of this plant, even approaching close up 

 to the windows of houses. The grape-like clusters of violet-coloured 

 berries produced by the common evergreen barberry [Mahonia aqui- 

 folia), in spite of their intense sourness, are much sought after by 

 birds of several kinds. I have watched Blackcaps and Garden- 

 Warblers feasting on them, and staining their breasts with the rich 

 crimson juice. Blackbirds are sure to find them out, and rapidly 

 reduce their numbers. I think the berries of the cuckoo-pint, or 

 " lords and ladies " {Arum maculatum), are, as a rule, rejected by 

 birds of all kinds, being of a more or less poisonous nature. Yet I 

 once saw a Robin with one in its beak. — G. T. Rope (Blaxhall, 



Suffolk). 



PISCES. 



Ambicoloured Turbot. — Numerous accounts of so-called " double 

 flat-fishes " have appeared from time to time in natural history 

 journals, but I think many more occur than ever find that distinction. 

 In a copy of Buckland's ' Familiar History of British Fishes,' which 

 belonged to my father, the late Rev. Robert Elmhirst, of Farnham 

 Lodge, near Knaresborough, he has sketched the head of a left-handed 

 ambicoloured Turbot, caught at Redcar on Oct. 17th, 1877, and 

 written: " Dark on both sides, except a small place on the head ; top 

 fin thus," and figures the anterior end of the dorsal fin free and 

 projecting, as is often in such cases, over the eyes. The eyes are 

 drawn in almost natural positions, so that the fish probably closely 

 resembled that described by Mr. J. Ritchie in 1908 (an ambicoloured 

 Turbot with eyes approximately normal in position) in the ' Annals of 

 Scottish Natural History.' — Richaed Elmhirst (Millport, N.B.). 



