REPORTS. 287 



concoctions that were brewed for the combatting of evil 

 influences of various kinds, the removal of spells, &c. ; the 

 rite of confirmation was bj many regarded as a most valuable 

 remedv against rheumatism ; the souls of shipwrecked sailors, 

 it was believed, could never rest until their bodies had been 

 buried in consecrated ground. Many instances of this used 

 to be told in the parishes on our Western Coast, where fatal 

 wrecks were frequent before the building of the Hanois 

 Lighthouse. Again it was believed that the recital of certain 

 scripture texts would at once stop dangerous bleeding from 

 wounds, &c., and so on. 



I have latterly been going through a quantity of old 

 manuscript notes — chiefly of a local character — which I jotted 

 do^A■n during the first Avinter or two that I spent in Guernsey, 

 now nearly forty years ago. One of these fragmentary scraps 

 reminded me of an incident which was very much talked 

 about at the time, but it has doubtless long been forgotten. 

 And with this brief narration I will close the Keport. 



When the extension of Fountain Street, known as 

 Church Hill, was cut across the old Burial Ground of the 

 Town Church, a great number of ancient graves were un- 

 avoidably disturbed. Much of this churchyard mmdd, 

 together with the human bones it contained, was got rid of as 

 ballast. One day, a well-knoAvn local vessel, under an equally 

 well-known and somewhat reckless Guernsey Captain was 

 observed leaving the Old Harbour with a lot of this gruesome 

 ballast on board. " Where are you bound, Captain ? " asked 

 an onlooker, shouting his query from the pier-head. The 

 Captain seemed annoyed at the enquiry, and he named in his 

 rough reply a very unpleasant theological destination dis- 

 tinguished rather for its caloric than its comfort. I won't 

 repeat his language, but my informant assured me that neither 

 the vessel, the master nor any of the crew Avere ever seen or 

 heard of again. They all vanished utterly. The narrator 

 told me that he considered it a " signal judgment," and a 

 terrible warnino-. 



J. LixwooD Pitts, Sec. Folklore Sect. 



Report of the Ornithological Section. 



One very interesting species has to be added this year to 

 the list of the birls of the Sarnian Islands — the Wood Lark — 

 two of which were seen in Sark by Mr. F. L. Tanner. Owing 

 to the exceptionally cold and simless Aveather that characterised 

 the so-called summer of 1907, the observations on the movements 



