170 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



the bird is caught the next thing is to 

 kill it as quickly and with as little pain 

 as possible, and this may be done by 

 pressing firmly the back and the breast 

 bone with the finger and thumb. Kill 

 what you need, but if you capture any 

 you do not require by all means let 

 them go again. To kill those you do 

 not want is cruel, but you are not open 

 to this charge for killing those you 

 absolutely require, else what of the 

 sportsman, shrimp catcher, fisherman, 

 butcher, and many others who depend 

 entirely for their subsistence upon the 

 death of some kind of animals. It is a 

 well-known fact that a large majority 

 of animals come to their death by 

 violence, one animal preying upon 

 another — a constant struggle for ex- 

 istence, and those who, like us, have 

 lain with their head over the precipitous 

 rocks at Flambro' Head, or the Isle of 

 Wight, and seen the prodigious multi- 

 tudes of sea fowl, will require no further 

 proof to impress upon them this fact. 

 When a bird is shot the first thing to be 

 done is to plug any wound, as well as its 

 nostrils, and throat with a little cotton 

 wadding, and either hang it up by the 

 legs or lay it flat in a cool place to 

 await the skinning, which m ty be done 

 as soon as convenient after the bird is 

 thoroughly cold. No bird should be 

 kept more than two or three days in 

 summer, or a week in winter. Many 

 kinds, especially during the winter, 

 may be purchased at very trifling cost 

 from the game dealers, where there is 

 generally the advantage of having a 

 large quantity to select from, and those 



can be picked out which are in the best 

 plumage. Many rare birds may be 

 bought in this way, we have picked out 

 Curlew Sandpipers from batches of 

 Dunlins, Great Snipes from strings of 

 common Snipes, &c. But we must 

 leave this part of the subject as we 

 surmise there will be little difficulty in 

 getting specimens, and our space is 

 wanted for other matter. We will next 

 proceed to the skinning process. 

 [To be continued.) 



NOTES, CAPTURES, &c. 



Occurrence of the Grey Phalarope in 

 Lancashire. — I have just set up a specimen 

 of this rare bird in good condition, which 

 was shot on last New Year's Day on 

 the sea shore at Crosby, a few miles North of 

 Liverpool, by Mr. Edwards, of that place, 

 who kindly presented the skin to me. — John" 

 W. Ellis, Liverpool. 



Late Appearance of Hybernia rupicap- 

 raria. — While out hunting larvae, &c. , on Wed- 

 nesday night, March 17th, between NewFerry 

 and Bromborough, I found H. progemmaria, 

 swarming on the bare hawthorn hedges. I also 

 took A. bad iata, and two H. rupicapraria, which 

 seemed to have only quite recently emerged 

 from the pupoe. Is not this very late in the 

 season for this species to appear ? — Ibid. 



Hemiptera and Coleoptera. — Having been 

 out after insects this afternoon, March 20th, 

 it may interest some readers to hear what I 

 saw and captured. Sweeping Furze I got a 

 good many Apions, a Centhorhy?ichus, some 

 Sitoncs, and an Hemipterous insect — Lygus 

 pratensis. One pond I tried for a few minutes 

 seemed to swarm with small water Beetles, 

 Notonecta, Corixa, Sec. — E. P. Collett, St. 

 Leonard's, Hastings. 



Wild Flowers observed this year in the 

 neighbourhood of Eastham and Shotwick, 



