4-54 MR. J. H. GURNEY, JUN., ON THE ISLES ON SCILLY. 
“ Cassaterides.” Mr. Smart does not seem to have recognised 
the abundance of the Purple Sandpiper {l.c. p. 171), which 
we found very common, but no doubt in different seasons 
their numbers vary, as is the case with so many birds everywhere. 
We saw two Great Northern Divers in, apparently, complete 
breeding plumage : they seem to linger on the coast of Cornwall, 
for I remember, many summers ago, assisting in the chase of a pair 
in Falmouth harbour, and one of them, which succumbed to the 
aim of Mr. Howard Fox, was as perfect a bird as it was possible 
to have. 
After leaving the islands, an hour was spent very pleasantly at 
Penzance with the veteran naturalist Mr. Vingoe, now over eighty 
years of age, who showed us the Yellowshank and American 
Solitary Sandjiiper, — both shot by his son, of which he is, naturally, 
very proud, — the American Little Stint, Ked-breasted Flycatcher,* 
Cream-coloured Courser, etc. He also produced a lovely Grey 
Phalarojie in breeding plumage, adult, and far redder than 
any British specimen I ever saw, which from the circumstance 
of its having only one leg, is evidently the one shot at Par, 
recorded by the late Mr. Eodd (‘Zoologist,’ 1878, p. 255). As 
hardly any of Mr. Vingoe’s rarities are labelled with date and 
locality, it is exceedingly probable that when he is gone the value 
of many of them, as local specimens, will perish with him. 
Indeed ho has already forgotten the dates of most, although 
he can give the circumstances connected with their capture. 
I advised him to write what little he knew on the stands of 
all before it was too late, knowing that the identity of many a 
rare British bird has been irrecoverably lost, at the death of its 
owner, for want of this necessary precaution. 
* I bought this Flycatcher, but ou returning home, found it was 
unrecorded. Mr. Vingoe states that he received it from Scilly in the same 
parcel with Mr. Rodd’s, both in the flesh. That would be in October, 18(13. 
Rut Mr. Rodd’s]not having recorded it, if he knew about it, as Mr. Vingoe 
says was the case, is very unaccountable ; and I am bound to add that 
a gentleman, who is the best authority ou the birds of the Scilly Islands, 
suspects some mistake in the matter. 
