NOTES AND QUERIES. 573 



of British Birds in the possession of Mr. E. M. Counop of Rollesby Hall, 

 near Great Yarmouth, Mr. Cole, the Norwich bird preserver, pointed out to 

 me a Herring Gull, which he said the late Mr. Stevenson had examined in 

 the flesh, and believed to be Larus cachinnans. At his request Mr. Cole 

 had noted the colour of the soft parts on the back of the case, and a careful 

 examination led me to endorse the opinion expressed by Mr. Stevenson. 

 Mr. Howard Saunders has also been good enough to examine the bird, and 

 expresses himself quite satisfied with the correctness of the determination. 

 The bird was shot by the veteran gunner, John Thomas, on Breydon Water, 

 near Great Yarmouth, and sent by him in the flesh to Mr. Cole, on the 4th 

 of November, 1886 : it proved to be a male by dissection, and differed from 

 the Common Herring Gull in the darkness of the mantle ; the legs were a 

 beautiful lemon yellow, and the bare ring round the eye deep orange-red. 

 The mantle and orbital ring still retain their normal colour, but the legs 

 have uufortunately been painted pale yellow, which Mr. Cole assures me 

 he imitated from nature. The late season at which this southern species 

 was killed seems remarkable; but still later in the same year (on December 

 26th), and in the same locality, a beautiful adult example of the Mediter- 

 ranean Black-headed Gull was killed. I am not aware of any previous 

 occurrence of L. cachinnans in Britain having been recorded. — Thomas 

 Southwell (Norwich). 



Note on Flight of Green Sandpiper. — On the 4th September last I 

 flushed in some marshes near here a bird that I thought, from its note and 

 flight, to be a Wood Sandpiper (Totanus glareola). It rose with a very 

 feeble sibilous note, and skimmed along close to the water till it settled 

 again. I had some years ago killed the species close to the same spot, 

 and that circumstance strengthened my conjecture as to the species. I 

 flushed this bird several times without getting a shot, but its flight and note 

 were always the same. Wishing to identify the bird, I went to the same 

 locality again on the 7th September (three days later), when I again found 

 the bird, which rose with the same note and flight. At its last rise I got a 

 shot and killed it, and was surprised to find that it was the Green Sand- 

 piper (T, ochropus). I have frequently met with this last species through 

 many past years, and without exception it has risen wild, with a loud and 

 shrill cry, invariably mounting high into the air, and never skimming 

 the water. It seems, therefore, thai the Green Sandpiper at certain times or 

 seasons rises with the note and habit as to flight of the Wood Sandpiper. 

 It would be interesting to know whether others have observed this variation 

 of flight and note in T. ochropus. — W. Oxenden Hammond (St. Albans 

 Court, near Wingham, Kent). 



Green Woodpecker boring in November.— While out after Wood- 

 pigeous on November loth, I was much surprised to see in a decayed 



