NOTES AND QUEEIES. 457 



the building. He may " welcome the coming, speed the parting guest," but 

 not rarely has he to remove a heap of slain, whose migration is henceforward 

 for ever at an end, or is directed elsewhither than along the " fly-line " 

 which touches Heligoland. In a little island where many things are strange 

 there is surely nothing more inscrutable than this periodical Wanderung, 

 That without a moment's warning the air above us should be filled with 

 myriads of birds, apparently discharged like arrows from a bow, " perpen- 

 dicularly down from the invisible heights;" is a riddle which none as yet 

 may rede. While so wealthy in Avifauna, these few acres are, naturally 

 enough, almost wholly deficient in quadrupeds and reptiles. But, en revanche, 

 the surrounding waters are alive with fish of many kinds, and Seals and 

 Porpoises are often visible. — From the ' National Review,' August, 1890. 



[It is with great satisfaction we are able to add that Herr Gatke's 

 famous collection of birds, formed by him during many years' residence on 

 Heligoland, has been purchased by Mr. Henry Seebohm for presentation to 

 the British Museum ; and we learn also that Herr Gatke's journal of 

 observations on the Ornithology of this island is in a fair way towards 

 publication. — Ed.] 



The Baltimore Oriole in Shetland. — Mr. H. Dykes Lloyd has re- 

 cently forwarded for identification a specimen of the Baltimore Oriole, 

 Icterus Baltimore (Linn.), which was caught alive, in an exhausted con- 

 dition, on the 26th of September last, at Balta Sound, Shetland, by Mr. 

 Andrew Anderson, a merchant of that place. Mr. Lloyd, for whom this 

 bird has been preserved, writes word that another of the same species was 

 seen on the same day at Haroldswick, but was not obtained. This species 

 is so frequently imported to England from New York as a cage bird that 

 we may not unreasonably assume that the pair which found their way to 

 Shetland may have made their escape on being landed at Liverpool. It 

 may not be generally known, perhaps, that the specific name " Baltimore " 

 was bestowed by Linnaeus not on account of its supposed abundance in the 

 neighbourhood of Baltimore, or because it was first received from that part 

 of the world, but out of compliment to Lord Baltimore, whose livery was 

 black and yellow,like the plumage of the male Oriole. — J. E. Harting. 



Spotted Crake in Great Britain.— Will you allow me to say, with 

 reference to my paper on this subject (pp. 401 — 417), that I have since its 

 publication already received some valuable information (respecting Suffolk, 

 Somerset, Devon, Wales, &c), and that I should be glad of more? Any 

 additional facts that I am able to collect, together with a few corrections, I 

 propose to offer to « The Zoologist ' in the form of a supplementary paper. 

 Conclusion ii. will doubtless have been noticed by readers. — 0. V. Aplin 

 (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Crakes and Rails. — After reading Mr. Aplin's most interesting paper 

 on the Spotted Crake in ' The Zoologist ' for November, I wondered what 



ZOOLOGIST. DEC. 1890. 2 M 



