NOTES AND QUERIES. 25 



have made the mistake of visiting this inhospitable country, where every 

 strange bird, especially every large bird of handsome plumage, is ruthlessly 

 done to death. Now if an inland county, like Wiltshire, has evidence of 

 two or three Bitterns as annual visitors, it might be expected that in all 

 the counties, collectively, fifty or sixty specimens are likely to occur ; and, 

 indeed, I have taken some pains to note in the columns of 'The Field,' 

 1 The Zoologist,' and other publications, the number of Bitterns which, of 

 late years, have been reported as occurring in various parts of England. 

 I shall not be above the mark if I say that quite fifty specimens are 

 recorded as an average every winter, though in some seasons very many 

 more than in others ; but I suppose that not one-half of those seen and 

 killed amongst us are recorded in print, save, perhaps, in some country 

 newspaper, where some of them may occupy a corner amongst other 

 paragraphs, and are forgotten as soon as read. I would submit, then, that 

 in all probability no less than one huudred of these beautiful birds come 

 to us every winter, very few indeed of which, I fear, escape destruction. 

 But whence do they come ? Do they come from the marshy districts 

 of Belgium and Western Germany, and especially from Holland ? And 

 do they come as single birds (accidental stragglers), or in small parties, or 

 in flocks of forty or fifty, such as Captain Kelham once saw in Egypt in 

 December (Zool. 1883, p. 223)? It would be of great interest to me, and 

 doubtless to many others, if some light could be thrown on this little-known 

 point by competent authority. — Alfked Chas. Smith (Old Park, Devizes). 



Notes from Heligoland.— The following are some of the exceptional 

 occurrences on the Island iu the summer and autumn of 1892. On July 

 14th, the first Spoonbill (an old female) ever seen there, was shot on Sandy 

 Island by a bathing guest, who refused to part with it. On the 27th of 

 the same month, Alauda tartarica, a beautiful and entirely black old 

 male ; it was stuffed and set up by Mr. Gatke himself; the only other 

 record is one shot in April, 1874. On the 6th of October, Anthus richardi 

 occurred. The Yellow-browed Warbler, recently recorded by Mr. Haigh on 

 the Lincolnshire coast (Zool. xcii. p. 143), probably came across on the 

 same day. These two occurrences are suggestive of an eastern movement. 

 On the 21st, Puffinus anylorum was obtained ; the first occurrence since 

 fifty years ago, when the species was not unfrequent. — John Cobdeaux 

 (Eaton Hall, Retford). 



Singular accident to a Greenfinch. — At a meeting of the Cambridge 

 Entomological and Natural History Society, held during the past autumn 

 session, Mr. Marriott exhibited a skull of a Greenfinch. He had observed 

 the bird suspended to a telegraph wire near Cambridge, and not being able 

 to make out how it was fixed, bad with some difficulty taken it down. It 



