NOTES AND QUERIES. 229 



this connection I may be allowed to quote from a letter received from 

 Mr. R. J. Ussher, the well-known author of the ' Birds of Ireland.' He 

 says : — " It is indeed deplorable to think tbat one of our finest native 

 birds should be persecuted to extermination by the sordid greed of 

 dealers and of collectors who show by their purcbase of British-taken 

 eggs of the Kite that the feelings of the true ornithologist are unknown 

 to them. Both the dealers and their clients are shy of notoriety, but 

 their names are known, and shall be handed down, that naturalists of 

 the future may credit them with their fair share in bringing about 

 the extirpation of this fine bird. For our present purpose it 

 matters not whether the eggs have gone to Warwick or to Suffolk. 

 The one clear conclusion is that the purchaser of British-taken eggs 

 of a rare species, be it the Kite, the Great Skua, or Red-necked 

 Phalarope, is directly contributing to hasten the extermination of yet 

 another member of our avifauna. Incidentally our efforts to protect 

 the Kite have brought to light other details of the war of extermina- 

 tion now being waged by the dealer and his patrons. We hear of 

 tbirty-seven eggs of tbe Common Buzzard taken from Wales as the 

 proceeds of a single raid ; of one hundred eggs of the Chough taken 

 last year from a single Irish island ; of £2 10s. offered by a Yorkshire 

 naturalist for a local clutch of eggs of the Stone Curlew. Doubtless 

 the increase in game-preserving, the felling of large woods, and open- 

 ing up of the country have driven tbe Kite from most of its former 

 haunts, but it must be insisted that it has finally succumbed to the 

 ' oologist,' its last and most relentless foe. I have myself made the 

 largest collection of native birds' eggs in Ireland, but have steadfastly 

 abstained from taking or procuring the eggs of any bird in danger of 

 extinction, such as the Golden Eagle or the Red-throated Diver, 

 though I could easily have obtained them. I trust that English col- 

 lectors may be led to see how discreditable a thing it is to be instru- 

 mental in the extinction of a British species." — J. H. Salter. 



Pintail inland in Cheshire. — Dafila acuta is a not uncommon 

 winter visitor to the estuaries of the Dee and Mersey, and, judging 

 by the number taken in recent years in the duck-decoy at Hale on the 

 Lancashire shore of the Mersey, it is becoming more plentiful. This 

 Duck seldom wanders far from the coast, and, as it does not appear to 

 have been recorded from any of the Cbeshire inland waters, the occur- 

 rence of a drake on the pool at Norbury Booths, near Knutsford, on 

 April 8th, is noteworthy. During the time I watched it the Pintail 

 swam near to, but apart from, some Mallards, and did not associate 

 with the Tufted Ducks, four pairs of which were on the water. When 



