NOTES AND QUERIES. 153 



ought to be. It is now in my collection. The threadbare tertials referred 

 to (p. 397) are no indication of confinement, for I have seen them in a 

 wild Ruddy Shelduck in Egypt: but they are scarcely apparent in the 

 Norfolk bird. — J. H. Gurney (Keswick, Norwich). 



Lapwings passing over London. — As one does not have many oppor- 

 tunities of studying wild birds in London, it may be worth recording that 

 at midday, on March 4th, a flock of about a dozen Lapwings passed over 

 Jermyn Street and Piccadilly, flying northward.— Clement Reid. 



The Gadwall in Scotland. — As the Gadwall, Anas strepera, is a 

 somewhat rare bird in the north-east of Scotland, it may perhaps be of 

 interest to record that in December, 1892, I purchased a drake of this 

 species, which had been shot a few days earlier, by a man named James 

 Robertson, in the neighbourhood of the Moray Firth. — H. A. Macpherson 

 (Carlisle). 



The Nutcracker in Lincolnshire. — Lincolnshire, in common with 

 many other counties, has no record of a Nutcracker, Nucifraga caryoca- 

 tactes, taken within its borders. Assuming that all the bond fide British 

 specimens of this bird had hitherto been carefully recorded, I wondered how 

 one came to be in a certain public-house in Lincoln. Tn the course of four 

 or five years I paid several visits to this inn, to see the additions made to 

 his collection by the proprietor. Doubtful whether the Nutcracker was a 

 county specimen, yet wishing to secure it, I offered a case in exchange for 

 it, and the bird became mine. On examination I could find no inscrip- 

 tions about the case, it having the usual old-fashioned covering of paper, 

 the edges of which, pasted wide over the glass front, acted as moulding, and 

 that detached in places had let in the dust of half a century. So I un- 

 glazed the case, and, on removing the bird preparatory to throwing the box 

 away, the inscription, " Male, killed near Sleaford, Line," written close 

 inside the case, attracted my attention, and on the corresponding side, too, 

 was marked " March, 1833." So far, so good ; but who was the writer of 

 the inscription ? Thinking I might find more information outside the case 

 if I removed the colouring of glue and lamp-black, I cleaned the paper 

 only to find an old report of a parliamentary division. Col. Mason, calling 

 the same day, inspected the case and the data, and, after carefully comparing 

 the handwriting with that of Lucius Gray on some cases in his own col. 

 lection, he had no doubt that it was identical. And who was Lucius Gray ? 

 On the same authority, I learn that he was the taxidermist of Sleaford who 

 preserved most of the so-called " rare birds," at a time when Lincolnshire 

 was described as " The Aviary of England." Many of his birds— from the 

 late Dr. Harvey's collection — were transferred to the old British Museum. 

 It is to be hoped a full list of them will appear when Mr. Cordeaux's 

 1 Birds of Lincolnshire ' reaches a second edition. — A. Fieldsend (Lincoln). 



ZOOLOGIST.— APRIL, 1893. N 



