468 
APPENDIX. 
had been daily brought to dine with the family, and had partaken of 
their fare. It ate potatoes and flesh-meat, or potatoes and butter, 
taking twice the quantity of the latter that it did of the vegetable. The 
report I had of this bird in December 1850 was, that the sight of 
one eye is gone, and a cataract spreading over the other, and that it 
has a cough, accompanied by the ejection of phlegm. With such un- 
pleasant symptoms of old age, it is to be feared that we cannot reckon 
on its life being much longer extended.* 
Notice of migratory Birds which alighted on , or were seen from . , H.M.S 
Beacon , Captain Graves , on the passage from Malta to the Morea , at 
the end of April 1841. [I published this paper in the eighth volume 
of the e Annals of Natural History ’ (1842).] 
“ Having been favoured by my friend Captain Graves, B.N., with 
an invitation to accompany him during the projected government 
survey of the island of Candia, I, with Mr. E. Forbes (who had 
received from the Admiralty the honorary appointment of Naturalist 
on the occasion), left Malta in H.M.S. Beacon, on the 21st of April. 
The first port we sailed for was Navarino, for the purpose of watering 
the ship. The passage occupied seven days. It being just the period 
of the year when many species of birds which make Europe their 
abode only in the more genial seasons, after having passed the winter 
in Africa, were crossing the Mediterranean to their summer quarters, 
we were often gratified by a sight of them, either passing, resting 
briefly on the rigging, or remaining sometimes so long as a day or more 
about the ship. 
“ The following notes were made upon the subject. The prevailing 
wind of the day is set down : the progress noted is what we had made 
at sunset. 
“ April 22. — Wind W., forty miles E. of Malta. An owl alighted 
on the vessel and remained a short time. I saw it very well and near, 
but could not be certain of its species. Looking over the collection 
* In the Belfast News-letter, October 28th, 1812, there is mention of a green 
parrot shot at Byrt, which proved, from a gold ring on its neck, to have belonged 
to Captain Packenham, of the Saldanha ship of war, lost with all her crew off 
Lough Swilly. The loss of the ship was on the 4th of December of the preceding 
year ; so the bird had probably existed at large, on its own resources, for ten months, 
including a winter. 
