Birds, 143 



The Wood Sandpiper (Totanus glareola), another species consider- 

 ed by ornithological wTiters as a very rare visitant to this country, has 

 appeared in some numbers in the Land's End district. No fewer than 

 nine or ten were shot during the month of August this year : these in- 

 dividuals appeared to be birds of the year. The dusky sandpiper 

 [Totanus fuscus) I have also at length discovered in our neighbour- 

 hood, in a very interesting specimen killed by Mr. Pendarves at the 

 Land's End, in the first week of September, in a state of change from 

 summer to winter plumage, as appeared by a few grey feathers ap- 

 pearing on the back. The bird figured by Bewick as the spotted red- 

 shank is this bird, and is represented in change of plumage. I have 

 not until now discovered this species in Cornwall. It is not uncommon 

 in the winter season in the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. 

 This bird completes the group of sandpipers (Totani), all killed in the 

 neighbourhood of Penzance : the existence of the spotted sandpiper 

 (Totanus macular id) of America being doubted as belonging to Britain. 



I have also obtained, within the last two months, a very perfect 

 adult female specimen of Montagu's or the ash-coloured harrier (Falco 

 cineraceus)^ killed near Trereife by Mr. Day le Grice ; and another 

 adult male specimen, killed some years since at Trelaske, has also 

 passed into my hands, which, with the hen harrier and marsh harrier, 

 completes the family of Circas of the Falconidae amongst the Cornish 

 birds. I may here perhaps be permitted to suggest, that the example 

 in the museum of the Institution at Truro, labelled as the ash-coloured 

 falcon, is incorrect ; that bird appearing to me as being an immature 

 marsh harrier, which its very superior size, and its wings being shorter 

 than the tail, independently of other specific distinctions, evidently 

 point out. 



Among the smaller summer birds of passage which I have discover- 

 ed as visiting our county, I may mention the common redstart and 

 the garden warbler [Sylvia Phcenicura and hortensis), which are both 

 found at Trebartha. I have also in my collection a bird killed near 

 Penzance, which I suspect to be the female black redstart, [Sylvia 

 Tithys). The grey wagtail [Motacilla cinerea), a winter visitant in 

 the south of England generally, breeds annually on the banks of the 

 Lynher in this county. Edwd. Hearle Rodd. 



Penzance, October 31, 1840. 



Note on the occurrence of the Squacco Heron near Tenzance. I 

 am surprised that one of your correspondents (Zool. 78) should say 

 that only two examples of the squacco heron [Ardea comata) have 



