454 Birds. 



some accident had befallen him, for after one of these periodical migrations, he re- 

 turned no more. — J. F. Dawson ; Ventnor, I. W., December 9, 1843. 



Note on the Food of the Ringdove. In an article on the benefit and injury accru- 

 ing to agriculture from birds, by Mr. Archibald Hepburn, that gentleman observes of 

 the ringdove (Zool. 372) that he hopes to be able to add to the list of benefits it con- 

 fers on the farmer. I beg leave to state that in the Roothings of Essex this bird per- 

 forms signal service by eating great quantities of the seeds of charlock (Sinapis arvensis), 

 which plant is a serious nuisance in that part of the country, sometimes almost smo- 

 thering the crop of barley, and after harvest the seeds lie astonishingly thick upon the 

 ground. I have frequently shot the ringdove with its crop completely distended with 

 these seeds, and I should think I have taken a quarter of a pint from one bird. — Al- 

 fred Greenwood ; Penzance, December 21, 1843. 



Note on a Guinea-hen's Eggs being found in a Partridge 's Nest. I was informed late- 

 ly by a friend who resides in this neighbourhood, of the following curious circumstance 

 which came under his own immediate observation. The nest of a partridge was found 

 on his grounds, not very far from the house, in which a guinea-hen had laid three eggs, 

 and which the partridge had commenced sitting on, with her own usual number, when, 

 most unfortunately, the nest was disturbed, and I believe the eggs destroyed. Had 

 not the nest been disturbed, there was every probability of the partridge's hatching the 

 stranger eggs. — John Pemberton Bartlett ; Kingston Rectory. 



Enquiry respecting Montagu's Snipe and the Roseate Tern. Permit me to enquire 

 through the medium of ' The Zoologist,' whether the following birds, namely, Monta- 

 gu's snipe (Scolopax Montagui) and the roseate gull (Rossia rosea) are British ? They 

 are included in Mr. Doubleday's ' Nomenclature of British Birds,' but Mr. Yarrell 

 does not mention them in his excellent work just completed. — F. E. Thomas. 



[With regard to the snipe, I can only say that it appears from the Prince of Mu- 

 signano's Catalogue, that that author considers the great snipe of Montagu as distinct 

 from the Scolopax (or Gallinago) major, figured in Gould's • Birds of Europe,' plate 

 320, and has called it Gallinago Montagui, but Mr. Yarrell considers them only va- 

 riations of plumage arising from the age of the bird. I can give no opinion of my own 

 from the few opportunities I have had of examining the birds. With regard to the 

 gull (Rossia rosea), I was informed a specimen had been shot on the coast of Ireland, 

 but I believe the information was erroneous. — H. Doubleday.] 



Note on the occurrence of the Stilt Plover in New South Wales. I do not know 

 whether it is generally known that this rare British bird is also an inhabitant of New 

 South Wales; it may therefore perhaps be worth mentioning that I have just received 

 specimens from a friend who lately returned from that distant country. — T.Mansell; 

 Farnham, November 3, 1843. 



Notes on the occurrence of the Bones of enormous Birds allied to the Ostrich, in New 

 Zealand. At a late meeting of the Zoological Society, Professor Owen read a paper 

 on Deinornis, an extinct genus of tridactyle Struthious birds, the remains of which 

 have been discovered in considerable abundance in the muddy banks of the fresh-wa- 

 ter streams of the North Island of New Zealand. The first notice of this genus which 

 embraces species far surpassing in size that most gigantic recent bird — the Ostrich, 

 appeared in the Society's Proceedings for November, 1839, and the Memoir read by 

 Prof. Owen at the meeting of that date, was subsequently published in the Society's 

 Transactions, with a figure of the shaft of a femur, from the examination of which he 

 came to the conclusion that there formerly existed in New Zealand a gigantic Stru- 



