MISCELLANMA. 27 



this material must have been used for making the road at some 

 time or other, though I have not observed anything like paving 

 stones along the road in this district. But perhaps this stone 

 was quarried at a very much later time, v^hen this road was 

 used by Highland drovers, etc. Close to the " Outer Golden 

 Pot" are other old quarries in the same bed of Whinstone. 

 And again at the ''Ad Fines Camps" there are some quarries, 

 that seem excessively old, in a Whinstone Dyke, which runs 

 along near the east margin of the Camps, and which is a contin- 

 uation of the Basalt Dyke of Acklington. 



III. — Miscellanea. 



Occurrence of Saline'' s Gull, Lakus SAsmi, Leach, in the County 

 of Durham. — Through the kindness of my friend, Mr. Frederick 

 Eaine, I am enabled to add another rare visitant to our list of 

 the " Birds of JS^orthumberland and Durham." 



The specimen came into the possession of Mr. Raine on the 

 11th of October, 1879, the same day it was shot by a fisherman 

 at Seaham Harbour. This is the first specimen I have had the 

 pleasure of examining. The bird is in its first plumage. The 

 late Mr. Wm. Thompson, of Belfast, was the first to notice this 

 beautiful species of Larus as a visitant to the British Isles in a 

 communication which was read before the Linnean Society on 

 the 15th of April, 1834. His bird was shot in Belfast Bay on 

 the 18th of September, 1822, "Natural History of Ireland, p. 

 310." Although there is a very good description in the Nat. 

 Hist, of Ireland, at p. 311, it may not be out of place to put on 

 record a description of the plumage of our bird, which is as fol- 

 lows, viz. : — Bill three-quarters of an inch long from the feathers 

 of the upper mandible, iris dark hazel, ''feet pale flesh colour," 

 claws black, crown, front of eyes, and behind the eye for one 

 quarter of an inch white, feathers of the crown slightly tipped 

 with pale grey, back of neck darkish grey, each feather being 

 marked with a band of dark grey near the tips of the feathers. 



