NOTES AND QUERIES. 17 



from Halsall Moss, Southport. This nest is now in the Owens College 

 Museum, Manchester. — T. A. Coward (Bowdon). 



Wolves in France. — The Bulletin of the Ministry of Agriculture 

 gives the number of Wolves destroyed in France last year, or rather of 

 those for the destruction of which a premium was asked, as being 245, as 

 against 261 in 1893, and it has to be noted that the total has been 

 decreasing since 1883, when the Government increased the premium. In 

 the following year 1316 Wolves were accounted for, but they seem now to 

 be extinct in many departments, the majority of those killed last year being 

 in the central region of France — the Charente (51), the Haute-Vienne (42), 

 the Dordogne (33), the Vienne (19), and the Creuse (14), being all 

 contiguous departments — whereas in the eastern departments, where at 

 one time they abounded, there are now very few. 



Marten in Co. Limerick. — I have to report the capture of a Marten 

 (Martes sylvatica) in the Co. Limerick. It was caught in a trap on a 

 heather-clad hill at Glinstal, the property of Sir C. B. Barrington, some 

 time last autumn. I do not know the exact date of the capture, but I saw 

 the skin, which appeared to be that of a full-grown animal. In your article 

 on the Marten in Ireland, in ' The Zoologist ' for March, 1894, you stated 

 that you had no records of the Marten in Co. Limerick, so this capture 

 will be of interest. — G. H. Pentland (Black Hall, Drogheda). 



BIRDS. 

 Eagles in Kent. — Towards the end of December last, the daily papers 

 contained numerous letters, paragraphs, and even articles, referring to the 

 destruction of certain Eagles in Kent, which, of course, were termed 

 " Golden Eagles," as is usually the case in provincial newspapers when 

 any large bird of prey happens to get shot or trapped. A great deal of 

 ink is generally wasted over the matter, and it is curious to note the 

 different light in which such an incident is regarded by different classes of 

 writers. The provincial paragraphist considers the death of a supposed 

 "Golden Eagle" as an event to be announced with some flourish of 

 trumpets ; dimensions and weight are given, and usually exaggerated. In 

 one such paragraph we read that the height of the bird was 3 ft. 6 in., and 

 its weight 30 lbs., or three times as heavy as it was likely to be ! The 

 writers of letters " to the Editor " which follow the insertion of such para- 

 graph, usually, and very properly, give vent to some expression of indigna- 

 tion at the wanton destruction of rare birds, and after bestowing various 

 laudatory epithets on what they suppose to be this " king of birds," 

 usually conclude by suggesting that an Act of Parliament should be at once 

 passed to put a stop to such slaughter. The writer of an article on the 

 subject in a daily paper goes a step further, and supplies a column or two 

 about Golden Eagles and their ways, the nature of their haunts, food, and 

 ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XX. — JAN. 1896. C 



