270 THE ZOOLOGIST. 





May 10th, nest containing four eggs; 11th, nest and eggs gone; 18th, 

 nest not quite built ; 19th, nest pulled out again ; 22nd, hole lined thinly 

 wiih moss and containing one egg ; 23rd, egg gone. Thus three complete 

 and two incomplete nests were built this year, and fifteen eggs were laid. 

 It cannot have taken the pair more than six or seven days to build either 

 the second or third nest. The first two nests were built splendidly ; the 

 third was built loosely ; the fourth and fifth were never finished, although 

 an egg was laid in it. The pilfering of their eggs and the destroying of 

 their nests are repeated year after year, yet I am sure from my own obser- 

 vation that they have never forsaken the place. — John R. Denwood (Kirk- 

 gate, Cockermouth). 



Variety of Waterhen.— Last summer a keeper told me he had seen 

 a white Waterhen on the lake below the house here, but though a good 

 look-out was kept it was never seen there again. On May 28th I was told 

 there was a curious Waterhen on a pond on the roadside about half-a-mile 

 off. On walking there I saw the bird. The man told me it came there 

 last summer, and was about all the autumn, but left in the winter. It 

 returned about six weeks ago. I got close to it, and found it to be of a 

 pale tawny colour ; the back sandy yellow, shot with pale slate and grey, 

 the wings much abraded, with all the finer portions of the feathers worn 

 away; the head pale grey ; neck and breast greyish blue. The bird was 

 well grown, and has paired with a hen bird of the normal colour which is 

 now sitting, and I am anxious to see how the young turn out as regards 

 colour. The pond is on the roadside, very bare, no weeds, and only a bit 

 of old hedge at one side. Scores of people pass the edge of it, and dozens 

 of carts every day. There are two small farms within twenty and fifty yards 

 where dogs are kept. Why these birds should have left the larger and 

 quieter pools here, surrounded by covert and abundant food, is a mystery 

 to me. — J. Whitaker (Rain worth, Notts). 



FISHES. 



Sapphirine Gurnard in the Solway Firth.— I entirely concur in the 

 editorial suggestion that the Sapphirine Gurnard might naturally be 

 expected to occur in the Solway Firth, although this species generally 

 prefers much deeper water than is to be found in the upper parts thereof. 

 But I recorded its occurrence expressly to enable the readers of 'The 

 Zoologist ' to add the species to the list of fishes found in our territorial 

 waters as contained in the ' Fauna of Lakeland,' simply because the con- 

 tinued absence of the species from the list might suggest the fallacy that 

 this Gurnard avoided our coasts. I could not include the species in our 

 fish-fauna until I had ocular demonstration of its occurrence. The printer 

 makes me say that the largest fish of this species caught locally weighed 

 3f fbs. ; but this is a mistake. What I wrote was that it weighed seven 



