Birds. 4123 



glass jar, of a large Pecten shell, encrusted with corallines, which had 

 become loaded with putrescent matter by partial submersion in a foul 

 muddy bottom. 



Great care should also be taken in moving the Actiniae that the foot 

 or sucking disk with which it attaches itself to the rocks, stones, 

 or weed, be not injured, as, when this occurs, they rarely survive, but 

 roll about without attaching themselves, and gradually waste away 

 and die. 



With these exceptions then, everything has gone on very satisfac- 

 torily, care being always taken not to overload the water with too 

 large a proportion of animal life for the vegetation to balance, 

 as, whenever this has been inadvertently attempted, the water has 

 soon become foul, and the whole contents of the tank, both animal and 

 vegetable, have rapidly suffered, and it has required some time before 

 the water could be restored to its former healthy condition. 



In one of the numbers of the ' Zoologist ' of last year, I stated that 

 besides the Ulvse, Enteromorphae and Cladophorae, I had found the 

 Zostera marina a very useful plant for oxygenating the sea water; but 

 this observation has reference only to the case of a tank supplied with 

 a ground where its roots will find a sufficiency of food for its growth, 

 as in a clear shingle or sand it soon decays ; and it should be asso- 

 ciated with such animals as delight in a ground of this nature, as many 

 of the Annelids, crabs, burrowing shrimps, &c. There are several in- 

 teresting observations which have been made from time to time 

 connected with this subject, which I hope to lay before the Natural- 

 History world as soon as I can find leisure time for the purpose. 



Robert Warington. 



Apothecaries' Hall, Sept. 10th, 1853. 



Note on the Grasshopper Warbler. — In corroboration of Mr. Stevenson's note on 

 the grasshopper warbler (Zool. 4072), I may mention that two nests with eggs were 

 found here this summer, in swampy hollows in a small glen. Two or three years ago 

 a nest with four eggs was taken in an orchard on the banks of the Wear, in the city 

 of Durham ; and a birds'-nesting boy showed me in his collection last year, nearly a 

 dozen of these beautiful little eggs, which he had taken himself, but of which he did 

 not know the name. — H. B. Tristram ; Castle Eden, Durham, November 1, 1853. 



Occurrence of the Roller (Coracias garrula) near the Land's End. — The roller has 

 again made its appearance on our western shores ; and the specimen now under notice 

 was captured a few days since in the parish of St. Just, in Penaith, a few miles north 

 of the Land's End. On dissection it proves to be a female, with the ovarium fully de- 

 veloped ; and from the hard and compact state of the bones, it appears to be beyond a 



