406 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



found at page 9568 of that magazine, referring to his previous communi- 

 cation, and concluding with the following remark: — " I fear that I was im- 

 posed upon with respect to this specimen, and that it is in reality a foreign 

 one. On the 30th March, 1850, Mr. Gurney gave this bird (with others) 

 to the Norwich Museum, instructing Mr. Reeve to place it in the British 

 collection, but without any locality. Everbody who knew Mr. Gurney 

 will be perfectly aware of the extreme caution he exercised in matters of 

 this kind, and will not be surprised at his at once rejecting the bird in 

 question; but I should like to be allowed to state some reasons which 

 have led me to think that in this instance he acted precipitately. (1). Tvinga 

 acuminata, although described and named by Horsfield in 1820, could not 

 have been a very well-known species to British ornithologists in 1848, and 

 even the Pectoral Sandpiper would have been a most unlikely species for 

 this man to have obtained otherwise than by its accidentally falling to his 

 gun ; how much more unlikeley, therefore, would it be for him to obtain in 

 any other way an example of the Siberian form. The Red-winged Starling 

 (Agelceus phceniceus), on the contrary, a species frequently imported alive 

 into this country, is by no means an unlikely bird to have been selected for 

 a dishonest purpose, and the circumstance of an example of this bird 

 having actually been obtained in Norfolk in June, 1843, may have 

 suggested the deception. (2). The time of year, too, is in favour of the 

 bird being genuine, for all the Norfolk-killed Pectoral Sandpipers which . 

 have since been obtained have occurred (with a single exception) in Sep- 

 tember or October ; the bird in question, an adult in autumn plumage, is 

 therefore appropriate to the season. (3). It seems not improbable that the 

 large sum obtained, honestly it may be, by this man for the sandpiper, may 

 have tempted him to fraud on a subsequent occasion. After carefully 

 weighing the evidence pro and con, I am of opinion that Mr. Gurney, 

 annoyed at the attempted imposition with regard to the Red-winged 

 Starling, too hastily rejected a genuine Norfolk-killed specimen of the 

 Pectoral Sandpiper. With this opinion Mr. Reeve, who is in a better 

 position to appreciate the circumstances of the case than any other person 

 now living, entirely concurs. It seems highly probable, therefore, if not 

 an absolute certainty, that Tringa acuminata has been obtained twice in 

 the county of Norfolk, and that the Norwich Museum possesses the earliest 

 example. — Thomas Southwell (Norwich). 



Fulmar Petrel on the Irish Coast. — Until June, 1878, the only 

 known breeding haunt of the Fulmar, Procellaria glacialis, within the 

 British Isles was in the St. Kilda group of the Hebrides ; but in that year 

 some of these birds visited and bred on the island of Foula, one of the 

 Shetlands, having arrived there, it is said, in company with the carcase of 

 a dead whale that drifted ashore. The carcase afforded them ample food 

 for a long time, and finding suitable breeding quarters on the high clifTs, 



