186 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



plucked feathers of a Bed Grouse (Lagopus scoticus) on a cliff-top at 

 Carmel Head, North Anglesea, the work, presumably, of one of the 

 local Peregrine Falcons. So far as I can ascertain, this seems to be 

 the only evidence that the bird has occurred ou the island. The nearest 

 Grouse-moors (in Carnarvonshire) are some five and twenty miles away 

 — a long distance for this species to stray at this season, and in fair 

 weather ; an instance perhaps of the survival of a migratory instinct 

 now practically extinct. — S. G. Cummings (Chester). 



Do Partridges Migrate ? — I asked this question in my 'Notes of an 

 East Coast Naturalist,' pp. 54-58, and tried to answer it in the 

 negative, somewhat against my convictions. As a matter of fact, 

 almost yearly the French species (Caccabis rufa) " puts in an appear- 

 ance" — I put it that way — in lesser or greater numbers in the spring. 

 Chance time none are actually seen ; in other years, sometimes for two 

 or three seasons in succession, small flights are unexpectedly met with 

 on the sand-hills near to the sea ; I say unexpectedly, but when I was 

 a lad we boys used actually to frequent the denes (sand-dunes) in April, 

 searching in the furze and marram-tufts for them. I know it is stated 

 that Lord Eendlesham and the Marquis of Hertford " introduced " the 

 species into East Anglia in 1770, and another lot were turned adrift in 

 1823 ; but why do we not meet with the bird in other months than 

 April or May ? Its appearance, too, almost invariably coincides with 

 stiff and persistent easterly winds. The birds also are usually so 

 wearied and exhausted that it is not a difficult matter to run them 

 down, and, as I have assisted doing so, I am not depending upon 

 hearsay. Stevenson (' Birds of Norfolk ') remarks on " a wandering 

 instinct " in the French Partridge, and suggests that it attempts to 

 leave our shores, but, misjudging distance and its powers of flight, 

 attempts a return, and would thus naturally be regarded as a foreigner 

 just arrived upon the coast. On the 19th ult. between thirty and forty 

 were discovered on the sand-hills south of the town. The wind had 

 been easterly and of some strength for some time. Now, I hold this, 

 that the Quail, which is an acknowledged immigrant, has propor- 

 tionately no greater power of wing than the Partridge, or the Galli- 

 nules, or the Bails — birds that often exhibit equal wing-weariness 

 when met with directly after their arrival. Surely a journey across 

 Channel, or even this part of the German Ocean, is not beyond its 

 powers of endurance. I do not like to be dogmatic, but, with all due 

 respect to Stevenson, and some of my good Norfolk friends, whose 

 knowledge of bird-life, I freely admit, is greater than my own, I still 

 incline greatly to the possibility and probability of its being migratory, 



