THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



[July 



Notes and Observations. 



Polygamy among Starlings. — I venture to record the following 

 instance of polygamy. On April ist, I was watching a starling sit- 

 ting on the edge of a gutter just under my window. After a minute 

 or two it flew away, and disappeared in a hole in a tower not far off. 

 It had hardly entered the hole before two more appeared and settled 

 on the gutter. One of them, which had something in its beak, then 

 entered the hole, very soon it came out and perched beside that still 

 sitting on the gutter. After a few moments of what seemed a very 

 animated conversation, the third entered the hole. Not long after the 

 two came out, and perched alongside that left on the gutter. I often 

 saw all three afterwards going into the hole in turns, carrying bits of 

 straw, &c, for the nest. The nest is in an old tower of Radley Col- 

 lege, Oxford. — D. H. Stewart. 



The Foolish Guillemot (Colymbus troile). — One of my friends 

 brought me one of these beautiful birds in full feather, which he had 

 picked up in the sea alive, but which was so light (about 12 ozs.) that 

 I looked for the cause. I found the upper mandible broken by a 

 small shot, and thus the bird could not catch or hold its food, and 

 so had wasted to a mere skeleton. When I told him its name, he 

 observed, " Yes, its very funny, I've been fishing all my life, but I 

 never|knew they were so silly as to let us pick them up before." 

 My experience as an old sea-fowler is that they are very wary birds. 

 Did they get the name " foolish " from a similar cause ? — C. S. Greg- 

 son, Liverpool. 



Sphodrus leucophthalmus, L. — Mr. R.W. Thompson, of Regents 

 Park, sends me " a fast-running cellar beetle " (for want of a better 

 name) ; I find it to be an excellent specimen of Sphodrus leucophthalmus. 

 This is the second occasion on which I have had the pleasure of 

 receiving this insect from Mr. Thompson. — G. A. Lewcock, 73, 

 Oxford Road, Islington, N., May 13th, 1889. 



Lithosia caniola. — On the 8th June I visited Torcross, a very quiet 

 little village on the South Devon coast, for a few days' recreation and 

 to have a look at the insect life again in this locality ; searching one 

 evening among the herbage along the coast, I was delighted to find 

 half-a-dozen of my old acquaintance Lithosia caniola, all feeding on the 

 flowers of the Kidney- vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria.) I first found this 

 larva at Bolthead, in June, 1872, for particulars, vide The Entomologist, 

 Vol. VI, p. 261. 



