168 Ornithological Notes, by George Bolam. 



lengtli. Tlie bill measures — to gape, If inches ; from front to 

 tip, 1 1 incbes, and is slightly turned down towards the end ; in 

 colour the upper half of the upper mandible is dark brown, the 

 lower half and the under mandible orange yellow, except at the 

 tip, which is dark brown for about a quarter of an inch in both 

 upper and lower mandible. In colouring and general descrip- 

 tion of plumage, this specimen agrees pretty closely with the one 

 figured, and described by Mr Morris in his ''History of British 

 Birds," except that in the latter case the outer feather on each 

 side of the tail is said to have been white in ground colour, while 

 in the present instance it is yellowish fawn like the rest of the 

 tail. Professor Newton, to whose kind courtesy I am indebted 

 for some interesting information on the subject, tells me that so 

 far as he is aware "the Bartram's Sandpiper has, up to the 

 present time, unquestionably occurred three times in England, 

 namely: — One near Warwick, 31st October, 1851, Yarrell Hist. 

 Brit. Birds— Ed. 3, vol, ii., page 633 ; one near Cambridge, 12th 

 December, 1854, Yarrell, op. cit. — in the collection of Mr J. H. 

 Gurney ; one near Falmouth, 13th November, 1865, Bullmore, 

 Zoologist, 1866, page 37 ; and that Mr Murray Matthew states 

 (Zoologist, 1877, p. 389) that Dr Woodforde's collection at 

 Taxmton contains a sjpecimen said to have been obtained ' at 

 least thirty years- ago,' on the river Parret, in the parish of 

 Cambwick, Somersetshire ; while Mr Morris (Hist. Brit. Birds, 

 vol. iv., p. 296) quoted from the Illustrated London News, a state- 

 ment by a person signing himself ' N. S. E.' to the effect that 

 he had shot one at Bigswear, on the Wye, in Gloucestershire, on 

 the 19th January, 1855. As it is not known whether this last 

 has ever been examined by a competent authority, the record 

 can hardly at present be accepted. The species does not appear 

 to have been obtained, as yet, in either Scotland or Ireland." 



Pupp {Ilachetes pugnax). — Occasionally occurs along the coast in 

 autumn. There is a specimen in the Berwick Museum, which 

 was killed in the early part of September, 1879, on Annstead 

 farm, near Beadnell, and I have two others, the one shot at Gos- 

 wick, on 12th October, 1877, the other purchased from a game 

 shop in Berwick, on 4th September, 1878. and believed to have 

 been killed at the mouth of the river Tweed. Two of these are 

 in the winter plumage, the other is immature. In addition to 

 the instances above mentioned, I have seen several specimens 



