ford, besides meeting with the larger species which I mentioned ; 
and ]\Ir. De Grey tells me that he has taken Agrotis cinerea and 
Gelechui vilelhi, (both of them much rarer sandhill insects,) at 
l>randon, and Gclechict Tncwinofcci as far away as Tottiugton, oii 
the Merton estate, to which place the drift sand extends. 
Ihese fiuther observations enable me to bring forward another 
very interesting point, which I felt hardly justified in deducing 
from the data in my possession a month ago. It is this — most of 
these species belong to large genera of closely allied and abundant 
species, (Agrotis, Mamcstra, Gelechia,) genera such as have been 
pointed out as most likely to produce new species by natural 
selection— dominant groups, in fact. These species, however, in 
spite of their isolation and alteration of condition, are as true and 
as clearly defined as those of our present coast. 
VI. 
OX THE ABUXDAXCE OF LITTLE GULLS OX THE 
XOKFOLK COAST IX THE WIXTEK OF 1869—70. 
By H. Stevenson, F.L.S. 
Read 20th December, 1870. 
It is rarely a year passes that is not at one period or other re- 
markable for some ornithological occurrence of special interest 
either the advent of a new or an extraordinary excess in the 
number of some other species, commonly looked upon as a rare or 
uncertain visitant. Thus, of late years, we have had an invasion 
of sand- grouse, a plethora of waxwings, shorelarks, and storm 
petrels ; during the present autumn a surfeit of quails, and in the 
•winter of 1869 — 70, such an influx of little gulls as had probably 
never been known up to that date. Judging from former records 
of specimens obtained, this small and very elegant species has 
been observed occasionally on our coast, the stragglers procured 
from time to time being, almost invariably, young birds, but 
F 
