CoRDEAux : The Sea Birds at Flamborough. 



95 



round. Three eggs are laid. The young birds, when they first 

 appear at sea — conspicuous by the black spots on the side of the head 

 — are called " mackerel birds," because they usually appear at sea with 

 their parents at the time these fish are approaching the coast in 

 August. 



Other sea-birds seen during the excursion were a cormorant and a 

 few herring gulls. The herring gull nests in 'considerable numbers on 

 the cliffs north of Filey Brigg — a locality where two pairs of cormor- 

 ants are nesting this year, also several rockdoves. 



A large flock of lapwing were seen in the fields above Speeton, 

 showing that these birds had already congregated. 



Wheatears, meadow pipits, and pied wagtail. 



Had time permitted, I should like to have told you something 

 about the migration of birds on to the Yorkshire coast in the autumn 

 of 1882, especially of that great flight of goldcrests, one wing of which 

 touched the Faroes and the other crossed the Channel Islands — a 

 migration which, commencing in August and continued through 

 September, rose to its height in October, and gradually decreasing to 

 November — altogether over 92 days. 



Again, of that large flight of jays which, early in October, took 

 three days to pass Heligoland, travelling from E to W' in a strong 

 south-easterly gale. 



And, scarcely less wonderful, of the immense flights of the common 

 hedge-sparrow, which, passing Heligoland early in October, occurred 

 at the same period in such large numbers in Holderness and North 

 East Lincolnshire. 



May I be permitted to trust, however, that an opportunity may be 

 given us of meeting together at some central place, as Leeds, during 

 the winter, when we may have leisure to enter more fully into the 

 details of the various excursions made by the Union during the year, 

 and the general results to be derived therefrom. 



[The above Notes are the substance of the remarks made by Mr. Cordeaux 

 while presiding over the Filey meeting (June 11th, 1883) of the Y.N.U.] 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES FROM SOUTH AFRICA. 



( Conimued.) 

 By S. D. Bairstow, F.L.S. 



A POOR benighted lunatic, "once upon a time," was run in by a 

 benighted policeman, charged with the possession of a 'ighly 

 dangerous hincubation, yer honner." P.C.'s potations of three-star 



