Reptiles — Fishes. 



8693 



The Land Tortoise breeding in Cornwall. — As the fact of the land tortoise having 

 bred in Cornwall, in the instance yon have been good enough to record (Zool. 8333), 

 at the residence of Mr. VV. Williams, of Tregullow, appears to have afforded some 

 interest, I feel gratified at being able to furnish you with some additional information 

 bearing upon the same subject, which has been afforded me by the widow of my 

 friend, your lamented correspondent, the la(e Mr. R. Q. Couch. I do so with greater 

 readiness because in all probability he would have himself communicated the circum- 

 stance, and still more likely would have added many particulars which he might have 

 observed respecting the anatomical structure of the ovarium of this reptile. I cannot 

 do better than allow you to publish Mrs. Couch's own words in reference to her own 

 tortoise : — " I have been reading in the ' Cornwall Gazette ' an account of the tortoises 

 bred at Tregullow ; and this has reminded me of a circumstance that it was my inten- 

 tion to have communicated to you before, but owing to my dear husband's illness and 

 death had quite escaped me. A tortoise in our possession did not this spring make 

 its appearance, and we at last conjectured what turned out to be true, that it must 

 have been buried (too deep for extricating itself), by the workmen employed on these 

 premises, underneath rubbish, &c. On the 29th of April our gardener, on turning up 

 some ground, turned up the tortoise, which was quite dead ; and his tool striking the 

 shell it fell in pieces ; but there were four eggs in it, which T have now quite perfect. 

 My husband thought the Natural History Society might be glad to have them. I 

 have not sent the eggs to you now, fearful of any accident, but I suppose they are 

 valuable." — Edward Hearle Rodd ; Penzance, June 12, 1863. 



Fish Ova not eaten by the Water Ouzel. — I was glad to see in an article in the 

 * Zoologist' (Zool. 8631), the water ouzel alluded to as not feeding on or destroying 

 the ova of fish. I have been a close watcher of this bird for many years, during which 

 time I have resided in Shropshire, Herefordshire and Radnorshire, and was constantly 

 shooting and fishing on the rivers near where I was living, and where the water ouzel 

 was a common bird. I never would allow my keeper to kill one or take its nest, though 

 he had frequent opportunities of doing so. I have often when fishing closely watched 

 the bird feeding, by being concealed from its sight, and never found an instance of 

 that food being the ova of fish which it had brought out of the water and was eating 

 on the gravelly shore by the side of the river, nor have I ever discovered any fish ova 

 in those that I have examined. A friend of mine, a good naturalist, when fishing one 

 day in the month of April, in which month the grayling are spawning, watched a water 

 ouzel on one of the spawning beds. It was constantly flying backwards and forwards 

 and pecking at something in the gravel, when he naturally concluded that it must be 

 eating the ova of the grayling. He happened to have a gun with him, and shot the 

 bird, which he took home and examined, and found in the stomach nothing but the 

 larva; of aquatic insects. No doubt this is the reason why the water ouzel is so much 

 destroyed by the keepers on the rivers. Often when fishing, and the sport has been 

 dull, while sitting on the banks of the river, admiring the beautiful wild scenery 

 around me, have I listened with much pleasure to the pretty note of the water ouzel, 

 which is much like that of the thrush.—/. W. Clutterbuck ; 9, Queen's Gate Gardens, 

 June 25, 1863. 



