46 



NOTES ORNITHOLOGY. 



Whitby Bird -notes. — During the first week in September three 

 Sanderlings {Calidris arenaria) and one Redshank (Totanus calidris) were 

 obtained at Whitby, and six Dotterel [Ejidronuas morinellus) at Robin Hood's 

 Bay. On the 6th four Dotterel were shot at Whitby, and on the 25th a Storm 

 Petrel {Procellaria pelagica) was seen in W^hitby Harbour. On the 27th a Great 

 Spotted Woodpecker {Dendj-ocopits major) was shot in Mulgrave W^oods. — 

 Thomas Stephenson, Whitby, October 15th, 1886. 



Fork-tailed Petrel at Formby. — On the nth of October I exhibited 

 at a meeting of the Microscopical and Natural History Section of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, a male Fork-tailed Petrel ( Thalassidroiiia 

 leachii) which was shot, along with a number of others, by my friend, Mr. T, D. Sykes, 

 on October 5th, 1885, during a gale of wind from the north-west, at Formby, 

 Lancashire. They were rather awkward to obtain, owing to their flying amongst 

 the breakers, and, when hit, falling into the water and getting washed out to sea. 

 It was not very easy to shoot at them sufficiently far off, not to blow them to pieces, 

 for they did not seem to have the least fear. My friend says they flew like black 

 butterflies amongst the waves, quite close to him, and if he had only had a landing 

 net he could easily have procured some by this means. The specimen I possess was 

 only slightly shot in the pinion of one of its wings, but it did not make any effort 

 to escape, and when he picked it up and put it on his hand, it walked round, and 

 seemed quite happy and contented, only uttering a call-note something like the 

 hissing sound made by some species of Bats, and which is rather ventriloquial. 

 Their tameness does not arise from exhaustion, for they were, without exception, 

 all fat and plump. — Fkaxcls Nicholson, Oakfieid, Ashley Road,, Altrincham. 



Bemarks on Mr. John Watson's Notes on the Eagles of 

 the Lake District. — It is interesting to learn from Mr. John W^atson that he 

 has data of recent occurrences of the Osprey in the Lake District ; for, of the five 

 bona fide occurrences noted in the ' Birds of Cumberland,' only one refers to the 

 Lake District, although Capt. Kinsey Dover and the other ornithologists resident 

 in the south of our county have always loyally assisted the zoological recorders of 

 the Scientific Association of the two counties. I do not wish to criticise Mr. John 

 Watson's views, especially as an epitome of the conclusions I arrived at in consulta- 

 tion with Mr. W. Duckworth has been in the hands of ornithologists for the last 

 six months. But the readers of the Naturalist must not suppose that the avifauna 

 of the Lake District has been 'neglected ' by everyone except Mr. John Watson, as 

 that writer's opening remarks would seem to indicate. 



As I have stated in the introduction to the ' Birds of Cumberland,' articles on 

 the birds of the Lake District were contributed to the Zoologist of 1865, 1867, and 

 1878, by ornithologists of no less high standing than Messrs. John Cordeaux, 

 Howard Saunders, and W^ A. Durnford, followed in 1879 by an excellent paper 

 from my friend Dr. Parker, of Gosforth. The contents of these papers and all 

 other trustworthy records were examined by myself, I believe exhaustively, more 

 than a year ago ; and probably the only local bird list that I have not yet seen is 

 that of the late Dr. Gough, about which I corresponded with his relatives un- 

 successfully. 



Mr. John Watson incidentally endorses the views I have expressed as to the 

 former occurrence of the Golden Eagle, but does not allude to the crux of the 

 question. The one fact which militates against the former occurrence of the 

 Golden Eagle in Cumberland as a resident, is that no mention of the species occurs 

 in Dr. Heysham's list of Aves in the county history. I can only account for its 

 omission by supposing that Dr. Heysham was doubtful (in 1797) as to whether the 

 Golden Eagle was really resident in the Lake District. 



With regard to Mr. John W^atson's statement that the White-tailed Eagle nested 

 at Whitbarrow Scaur in 1849, I must say ' credat Judteus' tintil Mr. W'atson 

 furnishes us with some authority for the statement. If the statement be thoroughly 

 reliable, it is of first-rate importance, and if the facts rest on authority, ornitholo- 

 gists should be in a position to weigh their value. — H. A. Macpherson, November 

 1st, 1886. 



Naturalist, 



