Birds. 5833 



the past week by Augustus Pechell, Esq., at Scilly. The exact locality I am not 

 made acquainted with, nor, in fact, with any particulars. This is an addition to our 

 Cornish Fauna, and a valuable bird, as a rare species, anywhere in England. The 

 description of this example I give briefly, for the benefit of your readers : — Bill, length 

 2£ inches, dilated at the tip, very rugose. Top of the head dark brown ; a dusky streak 

 from the corners of the mouth to the eye ; above this a broad white streak, extending, 

 in an indistinct form, over and to the back part of the eye. Neck smoke-gray, palest 

 in front. Breast and belly white, with a strong shade of yellow buff. Primaries dark, 

 shaft of first quill-feather white ; secondaries hair-brown, broadly edged at their tips 

 with white. Feathers on the back and scapulars black, edged with rust-red. Tail 

 and upper tail-coverts elegantly barred with narrow black and white lines ; under tail- 

 coverts and flanks the same, but fainter ; wing-coverts cinereous, the centre of the fea- 

 thers darker. — Id. 



The Great Snipe (Scolopax major) shot near York. — A very fine specimen of the 

 great snipe was sent to me for preservation on Saturday last, the 19th instant. It was 

 shot about three miles from York, at a place called Askham Bog, and was flushed in 

 company with some of the common snipe. It was one mass of fat, and weighed nine 

 ounces. — David Graham ; Market Street, York, September 21, 1857. 



Food of the Storm Petrel. — In the ' Zoologist' for last month (Zool. 5799) I see a 

 query as to what is the seed of the gulf-weed alluded to by Wilson. I will relate my 

 observations on a specimen of Thalassidroma Wilsoni which flew in at the port of the 

 steward's pantry in the ship I was on board of one evening in August, 1856, homeward 

 bound, latitude 12° North. First as to the bird flying on board. None of the crew 

 had seen an instance of it before. It could not have been from bad weather, as the 

 sea was smooth and the wind nearly calm ; and I can only suppose that it was 

 attracted by the light of a lamp hanging there. This bird was put into a cage for the 

 night, during which it was very uneasy, continually fluttering, and uttering a sharp 

 squeak. Finding it dead the next morning, I skinned it. On opening the stomach I 

 found nothing but about six semi-transparent globular bodies, of the size of duck shot, 

 all of them hollow, except one, which contained a cottony substance. These globular 

 bodies I considered to be the air-vessels of some species of Algae ; they were very simi- 

 lar to those so abundant on the gulf-weed (but we were hardly in its latitude), and 

 which obtained for that plant the name of sea grapes from the early navigators. Now, 

 these air-vessels are very commonly mistaken for seeds, and were most probably so mis- 

 called by Wilson. There is no doubt that the object of the bird in following ships is 

 to pick up the refuse thrown overboard. I have not seen them more abundant in 

 rough weather than in fine, and think that rule does not hold good. They were par- 

 ticularly abundant in the Southern Ocean, in 45° of latitude, and appear to be far less 

 numerous in the tropics, and are again more plentiful in the North Pacific and Atlan- 

 tic. I think Thalassidroma Wilsoni is the most common in the southern, and T. pe- 

 lagica in the northern, hemisphere. I also once saw what I considered to be T. 

 Leachii in the Southern Ocean. — Robert M'Lachlan; Forest Hill, October 5, 1857. 



Note on the Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes), fyc. — In the beginning of Sep- 

 tember last I was staying a few days at Zermatt, in the Canton of Valais, Switzer- 

 land. I there found the nutcracker very abundant, and so tame that I was able to 

 observe its habits with ease. The forests about Zermatt are composed of larch and 

 Pinus Cembra, the cones of which last tree seem to form the principal food of the nut- 

 cracker. The popular name of the Pinus Cembra in that neighbourhood is Arven, and 

 XV. 3 R 



