326 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS 
Corton, near Lowestoft. As this bird came more particularly 
under the notice of Mr. Southwell, I have asked him to supply 
a short account of it. — J. H. Gurney. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Roberts, to whom the Gull 
referred to above by Mr. Gurney was sent for preservation, 
I had an opportunity of thoroughly examining the bird, 
and sent a full description of the post mortem appearance, 
both externally and of the viscera, to the ‘ Field ’ of 
March 10th, 1906. 
Externally there was a track quite denuded of feathers 
about three-quarters of an inch wide, extending from the 
right carpal joint, along the anterior margin of the wing, 
obliquely across the breast, and terminating on the left side 
of the abdomen ; the skin was not broken, and there was no 
discoloration. 
On removing the skin, there was no apparent trace of the 
passage of the electric current, and the abdominal wall was 
not perforated — a slight discoloration where the external 
track ended, I attributed to another cause as the bird had 
been dead twenty days. The viscera was healthy, and there 
was no apparent cause of death, which probably was caused 
by constitutional shock. 
The remarkable feature of this storm was, I think, its 
destructive effect on so many birds over a wide-spread area. 
When we consider that a bird in mid-air is completely 
insulated, the rarity of such accidents is not surprising ; for 
it seems that to meet with such a fate the bird must come 
directly within the path of the discharge, and the fact that 
so many were killed, over so wide a tract of country, extending 
from Corton in the extreme north-eastern coast of Suffolk, 
to Holt (some miles inland) and Cley on the coast of North 
Norfolk, must have been the result of several separate electric 
discharges, although in the same storm, and surely must 
indicate an electrical condition of the atmosphere of very 
rare occurrence. — T. S. 
