REPORTS. 



271 



different seasons, and also include references to the occurrence 

 of rare and occasional visitors. 



For instance the shooting of a White-tailed Eagle 

 (Haliaetus albicilla) at Alderney about the 1st of November, 

 1871, and another at Bordeaux Harbour, Guernsey, on the 

 14th of the same month, are made the subject of special 

 paragraphs by both Miss Carey and Mr. Smith. I may add 

 to this that in our Society's Transactions for 1908, Mr. E. D. 

 Marquand has put on record that specimens of the White- 

 tailed Eagle were killed at Alderney in November and 

 December, 1899, and another on November 6th, 1908. 



Starlings, numerous now almost as the sparrow, were 

 evidently not by any means so in the sixties and early 

 seventies. Writing about them Mr. Smith said : " These 

 birds, though the large numbers appear to be only migrants, 

 must still be considered as partially resident, for, although I 

 did not see any of them myself during my visit in the summer 

 of 1866, I have seen several of their eggs in collections which 

 were taken in the island. In Alderney I heard also that they 

 were very numerous, more so than they had been for many 

 years." 



And in another number of this volume of the Zoologist 

 (March) Miss Carey wrote : " Altogether my notes for this 

 month are very meagre. One or two things, however, have 

 occurred which are perhaps worth noticing. The first of these 

 is that in the field close to the house I observed a flock 

 of Starlings on the 6th of December [1871]. Starlings are 

 never very common here, and are generally seen in the 

 country." 



In the September issue Miss Carey stated that she 

 had seen Choughs on the cliffs on June 14th [1872], a fact 

 which is worth noticing now as the bird seems to have 

 disappeared from our midst. I have never seen one myself, 

 and in the Ornithological Report published in this Society's 

 Transactions for 1908, Mr. E. D. Marquand said : " Can any 

 one say whether the Chough still occurs in Guernsey ? 

 According to Smith it was a common resident here thirty 

 years ago, but I have met with no one who has actually seen 

 a specimen of late years, and my own search all along the 

 south coast has so far been fruitless. But Choughs occur in 

 Sark, and bred there two years ago." 



Cecil Smith was of the opinion that the Chough should 

 be protected, for writing to the Zoologist about our local" Sea- 

 bird Preservation Act," and after enumerating the 44 Oiseaux de 

 Mer " which it was the wise object of the Ordonnance to 



