NOTES AND QUERIES. 21 



had evidently come ashore but a few hours previously. Along the same 

 sands I also found several Puffins, Razorbills, and Guillemots, all driven 

 ashore by the N.W. gale of the two previous days. — Robert Wakrkn 

 (Moyview, Ballina). 



Storm-driven Sea Birds. — After the terribly destructive gales of 

 Nov. 19th and 20th, a Storm Petrel was picked up at Livermere, near 

 Bury St. Edmunds, and an adult Puffin within the limits of the borough, 

 which is nearly forty miles from the sea. The latter bird was alive and 

 well when found, and was taken to Mr. Travis, the Bury taxidermist, who 

 kept it alive for a week, but it refused to touch either fish or flesh. The 

 Puffin is a far more uncommon bird in Suffolk than the Little Auk ; the 

 late Mr. N. F. Hele, in his ' Notes about Aldeburgh,' was only able to 

 record the occurrence of three specimens in about thirty years. Mr. Travis 

 had at the same time another adult Puffin from March, in Cambridgeshire, 

 which I purchased in the flesh, and this bird had evidently met its death 

 by flying against some obstacle, the contact with which had fractured the 

 skull. A local paper records the fact that two days after the gale " more 

 than twenty sea-birds were picked up on the warrens near Icklingham and 

 Mildenhall, driven in by the terrific storm of Nov. 18th. There were 

 amongst them Guillemots, Razorbills, Puffins and Little Auks. M r. Howlett, 

 of Newmarket, had no less than thirty brought to him, some of them alive." 

 — Julian G. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Uncommon Birds in Somersetshire.— About the end of last November 

 one or two uncommon birds were shot near Bridgwater, amongst others a 

 Peregrine Falcon, a Grey Phalarope, and an immature Pomatorhine Skua, 

 Stercorarius pomatorhinus. The last named was brought to me, in the 

 flesh, for identification, and, as far as I know, it is the first reported 

 occurrence of this bird in Somerset. On Nov. 3rd a Guillemot was shot in 

 the river close to the town, just opposite a brick-yard, an unusual time of 

 year at which to find this bird here. All these are in the collection of 

 Mr. C. W. H. Tucker. — H. St. B. Goldsmith (King Sq., Bridgwater). 



[The Pomatorhine Skua, though not included by the late Mr. Cecil 

 Smith in his ' Birds of Somersetshire,' has been several times met with in 

 this county. See the Rev. M. A. Mathews ' Revised List of the Birds of 

 Somerset' in Proc. Somerset Archaeol. & Nat. Hist. Soc. 1893. — Ed.] 



Great Grey Shrike in Worcestershire. — On the 28th November last 

 an unusually large specimen of the Grey Shrike, Lanius excubitor, was 

 shot at Brandwood End, King's Heath, Worcestershire. It had but one 

 white wing-spot, was delicately vermiculated on the breast, and measured 

 ten inches and three-sixteenths in length. Mr. H. E. Dresser, who examined 

 the bird, said that it was L. excubitor, and of the variety known as L. major, 

 though not the true L. major. — F. Coburn (Holloway Head, Birmingham). 



