4512 Birds. 



trees of almost every description, amongst which cherries and plums predominated : 

 these were far too tempting to be overlooked by one of his age, and who had at all 

 times an appetite many a quadruped might envy in vain ; he accordingly put ashore* 

 and bargained with the unfortunate owner of the garden to have three hours' run upon 

 the fruit for eighteen-pence, which, according to average circumstances, would have 

 been no such bad arrangement for the latter, if the former would have taken a reason- 

 able proportion of gooseberries, currants, and other common fruit, but his mind was 

 exclusively bent upon the full and luscious-looking cherries, and on these he fell with 

 a will. Whether he occupied the whole of the three hours I am ignorant, but it 

 turned out in the end that the young man had economized his time as much as pos- 

 sible by eating the stones as well as the fruit: the consequence was a most severe 

 constipation and inflammatory attack, which required the attendance of a physician in 

 the neighbourhood, and that I should be sent for from London, as the young gentle- 

 man's recovery was thought to be almost hopeless : however, after two days and nights 

 of excruciating pain he was so far relieved as to be able to be removed back to Lon- 

 don, but it was a considerable time before he looked with a favourable eye on a cherry 

 again : the report of the physician, who was most kind and attentive, was, that he had 

 never met with a similar case of voracity, and that he conscientiously believed the 

 quantity eaten, from subsequent appearances, must have fully equalled, at the very 

 least, a bushel or a bushel and a half of cherries ! A friend this season desired his 

 keeper to place a coop, with a hen and a brood of young pheasants, at the end of his 

 orchard, where various kinds of fruit trees offered them a hasty retreat; but after the 

 young birds had been left there a few days, first one, then a second, and so on, were 

 found lying dead near the coop, with no apparent outward injury to account for their 

 deaths: at length, as all the brood seemed likely to follow a similar fate, the gentle- 

 man desired two or three of the dead pheasants to be opened, and, on doing so, their 

 craws were found greatly distended and entirely full of cherry-stones, a cherry-tree 

 being just inside the coop: the remainder of the brood were removed to a distant 

 spot, and all thrived and did well. There can therefore, I think, be no doubt that the 

 poisonous effects and indigestible nature of the cherry-stones must have caused the 

 death of these young pheasants, though a full-grown pheasant might perhaps have 

 taken but little harm from them, unless eaten in great quantities. My young friend's 

 fate had very nearly been the same as that of the pheasants, but he happily escaped. 

 — W. H. Slaney; Hat ton Hall, October 17, 1854. 



Occurrence of Schinz's Tringa, the Hawfinch and White-fronted Geese at Scilly. 

 — Mr. Jenkinson writes me word that a specimen of the rare Tringa Schinzii was shot 

 at St. Mary's, Scilly, last week ; that a hawfinch was seen in Mr. Smith's gardens ; 

 and that several white-fronted wild geese were shot. — Ednmrd Hearle Rodd ; Pen- 

 zance, October 17, 1854. 



Occurrence of the Crane (Grus cinerea) in Sussex.— On the 19th of this month I 

 saw, at the Museum at Chichester, a specimen of the crane, which had been shot the 

 day before at Pagham. It was in good condition, and apparently an immature fe- 

 male, the elongated plumes on the sides consisting of only two or three feathers, and 

 the head and neck being much tinged with rusty brown. This was after a moderate 

 gale from the west. — Wm. J3orrer,jun. ; Cowfold, Horsham, Sussex, October, 1854. 



Occurrence of Richardson's Skua (Lcstris Richardsonii) at Lynn.-— A young speci- 

 men of this bird was shot the other day in the estuary of our river, the Ouse. It 

 measured, from the tip of the bill to the tip of the longest feather in the tail, 17 inches ; 



