Miscellaneous. 



237 



Stint ; seeing a vast number more, whieh we were unable to get 

 at, and invariably in company with the Dunlin or Purre. So many 

 having been seen of this hitherto considered rare bird, is, I think, 

 too interesting a fact not to be placed on record. — J. U. G. Gutch. 



FOSSIL FISH. 



In a description of a Fossil Dragon Fly from the lias of War- 

 wickshire, in the Magazine of Nat. Hist, for June last, p. 301, I 

 stated that one of the fossil fish, found in the same locality, " ap- 

 pears to be a Cycloid, and furnishes an exception to the general- 

 ization of M. Agassiz, that no cycloidian fish occurs below the 

 chalk." I have since had an opportunity of showing this fish to 

 M. Agassiz, who proved to me, that although the scales of this 

 fish bear much resemblance at first sight to those of a Cycloid, yet 

 that it is in fact a Ganoid of the genus Pholidophorus. The above 

 generalization of M. Agassiz, therefore, remains as yet without an 

 exception. — H. E. Strickland. 



REMARKS ON A SPECIMEN OF KINGFISHER, SUPPOSED TO FORM A NEW 

 SPECIES OF THE TANYSIPTERA. 



The deception which is sometimes practised on naturalists by con- 

 tinental preparers of objects of natural history, is well exemplified 

 by a specimen of a Kingfisher which was purchased in Paris, and is 

 now before me. The specimen decidedly belongs to the genus Ta- 

 rty sipter a, of which there is but one species hitherto described, the 

 Tanysiptera Dca, a bird rarely seen in collections, though the British 

 Museum contains two good specimens. That to which I now wish 

 to call the attention of ornithologists, differs much from the Tany- 

 siptera Dea, both by the shortness of the central tail-feathers and by 

 the richness of the several colours with which it is ornamented : and 

 from these differences it was concluded to be a beautiful new spe- 

 cies. But on examining the specimen carefully, some doubt arose 

 as to the fact, whether it had not been, in part, at least, artfully 

 dressed in its present showy plumage, from observing that the struc- 

 ture of some of the feathers was of a more downy nature, especially 

 on the uropygium and beneath the body, than those usually cover- 

 ing the body of Kingfishers. This idea was rendered certain by the 

 discovery that the wings were decidedly those of an Alcedo Senega- 

 lensis. The addition of wings and feet is not, however, uncommon 

 in stuffed specimens of birds which come from New Guiana, as the 

 natives prepare the skins without those parts, for use as ornaments, 

 and from them the skins are procured and brought to Europe. A 

 further examination proved that the downy feathers (which are of a 

 rich salmon colour) of the uropygium, and most of those beneath 

 the body, had been taken from a specimen of Trogon Duvaucelii ; 

 while on the sides these latter feathers are mixed with others from 

 the neck of a young bird of Alcedo leucocephala, probably thus 

 placed in order to diminish the probability of determining their 

 identity. Having thus shown that all the under part is decep- 

 tively put together, it may reasonably be concluded that the feet 



