G60 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
birds iiy to a great distance from land, and seem to be attracted 
by ships.” — J. H. Gurney. 
Hybrid Sparrow ( Passer montanius X P. domesticus ). — At our 
January meeting the President exhibited, on behalf of the Rev. 
Julian Tuck, a hybrid between the House and the Tree Sparrow, shot 
in the early part of that month by Mr. Tuck’s brother, in a farm- 
yard near Bury St. Edmunds. About a dozen House Sparrows, in 
ordinary garb, fell to the same discharge. Compared with a 
similar hybrid recorded in our ‘Transactions,’ vol. iv. p. 522, the 
parentage of which was known, as it was bred by the late Mr. 
Otty, of Norwich, the two agree well, though the black on the 
throat is of much less extent. This black patch must have 
increased with age in Mr. Otty’s bird, as in 1887 the Rev. H. A. 
Macpherson saw it alive, and merely noted that the black was more 
extended than in a Tree Sparrow ; but when it died, about a year 
afterwards, it covered the upper part of the breast. 
Both hybrids show, to some extent, the peculiar Tree Sparrow’s 
chest-patch, of black surrounded with white, but Mr. Otty’s has it 
the most. His bird has red, or rather rufous, predominating on 
the crown over grey, but in Mr. Tuck’s these colours are evenly 
mixed ; both alike clearly, I think, indicating hybridism, as in a 
pure Tree Sparrow it would be nothing but red. 
This cross has only been obtained in a wild state twice, one in 
France (Suchetet, ‘Les Oiseaux Hy brides,’ vol. iii. p. 275), and 
one in Cumberland (‘Fauna of Lakeland,’ p. lxxxi.), and it has 
very rarely been produced in captivity. The Tree Sparrow has 
bred once, if not oftener, with the Italian Sparrow, Passer cisal- 
pinus, Suchetet, l.c. p. 278. — J. H. Gurney. 
Tiie Growth of Eels. — Last September we emptied a small 
lake in the grounds of Tostock House, of about half an acre in 
extent, which had not been cleaned since 1853, and took out 500 
loads of mud, which was three feet deep. The water was pumped 
out by a fire-engine in about twelve hours. Many hundreds of 
small Uace and Roach got smothered in the mud, as also did some 
of the Perch, but we saved plenty of “ bait ” for the Pike ponds. 
When this lake was stocked, in 1853, about fifty small Eels were 
put in, which came up in a barrel from the fens. Only two Eels 
