434 THE ZOOLOGIST, 



Bishopswood in mistake for Kites, will scarcely mitigate what many will 

 deplore, if only from long time association of a charming species with 

 Selborne Hanger and Gilbert White. — H.S.Davenport (Skeffington, 

 Leicester). 



Black-winged Stilt in Norfolk.— On Oct. 17th my eon shot a very 

 rare bird, the Black-winged Stilt, Himantopus candidus, on the common, 

 about a quarter of a mile from this house. We identified it from the 

 description in Mudie's ' British Birds,' with which it perfectly agrees, and, 

 having ascertained its rarity, forwarded it to Mr. T. E. Gunn, of Norwich, 

 for preservation. — Thomas Moore Hudson (The Manor House, Castleacre.) 



[The Black-winged Stilt is perhaps the rarest of all the European 

 wading -birds which visit us in spring and autumn, never remaining here 

 to breed. We have not heard of one for the past fifteen years, if we except 

 a specimen reported (Zool. 1889, p. 387) to have been shot on the Trent 

 near Nottingham, but subsequently shown (Zool. 1890, p. 25) to have been 

 mounted from a foreign skin and fraudulently put forward as a British 

 specimen by an unscrupulous dealer. One of the last recorded was a bird 

 seen in the marshes between Eastbourne and Polegate by the late Capt. 

 Clark- Kennedy on May 6th, 1880. In 1883 these were reported to have 

 been seen near Rye on Sept. 3rd (Zool. 1883, p. 495), but the species was 

 not satisfactorily identified. They may have been Avocets, or possibly 

 Oy stercatchers. — Ed. ] 



Escape of a Caged Eagle. — Under this headiug, in ' The Zoologist ' 

 for October (p. 380), the fact was announced that a Golden Eagle in the 

 Zoological Gardens at Bristol had contrived by an accident to make its 

 escape. We have since learnt from Mr. H. S. Devonport, of Skeffington, 

 Leicester, that a bird of this species was shot on Oct. 29th in Slate Wood, 

 on the estate of Sir Hugh Cholmeley, Bart., at Easton, and is in the hands 

 of the taxidermist for preservation. This announcement was made in the 



1 Grantham Journal' of Nov. 9th, where the bird is described as measuring 



2 ft. 11 in. in length and 7 ft. 2 in. from tip to tip of wing. General colour 

 a deep brown, mixed with tawny on the head and neck ; quills chocolate 

 with white shafts ; tail black spotted with ash ; legs yellow, feathered down 

 to the toes ; bill of a deep blue. Sex male ; weight 7 lbs. From the 

 description given by Mr. Devonport of its being seen at Skeffington between 

 Oct. 24th and 28th, when on several occasions it suffered a near approach 

 without showing undue alarm, there can be little doubt that this was the 

 bird which had made its escape three weeks previously. 



INSECTS. 



Insect Migration. — A jwopos of this subject, discussed in the last two 

 numbers of this Journal, Mr. E. L. Mitford directs attention to the 

 following information, which is given by Miss Gordon Cumming in her 

 entertaining book of travels entitled ' Two Happy Years in Ceylon' (2 vols, 





