435 
Mr. C. A. Wright’s Visit to Filfla. 
None, however, as far as I am aware, stay to breed. Geese and 
Swans I did not observe; but most certainly some species of 
these also come to us, as they descend to much lower latitudes 
on the coast of China. I may here remark that a Black Scoter 
Duck, shot by Capt. Blakiston on the Yangtsze, turned out to 
be the American Black Duck ( (Edemia americana, Swainson), 
and not the European (E . nigra as one would have expected. I 
have never met with this Duck, and have not, therefore, included 
it in my list. 
XXXIII,— A Visit to the Islet of Filfla , on the South Coast of 
Malta. By Charles A. Wright. 
Starting at 7 a.m., on the 16th of May last, with two friends, 
in a go-cart from Sliema, on the north side of Malta, we reached 
the sea-side opposite Filfla at about half-past nine o’clock a.m. 
Filfla is an isolated rock, less than half a mile long, and scarcely 
a quarter broad, situate on the south coast of Malta, some three 
or four miles off the shore. On our way from Sliema to the sea- 
coast, we saw a great many Corvus monedula , the only sedentary 
representative of the Corvine family in Malta. I thought I recog¬ 
nized two or three Corvus frugilegus, but, owing to the distance, 
was not quite sure. The Book is a bird of passage here, arriving 
in autumn, and sometimes staying the winter and part of spring. 
I noticed it this year, beyond all doubt, as late as the beginning 
of April. It generally leaves long before that time, probably to 
find a suitable breeding-country further north. In the fields by 
the roadside several Common Buntings and Short-toed Larks 
were breeding, and a few Swifts were chasing insects in the 
higher regions of the air. A Turtle-Dove, a Spectacled Warbler, 
and several Spotted Flycatchers caught our view as we drove 
along, and every farmhouse had its colony of noisy Sparrows 
{Passer salicicola). The Spectacled Warbler (the only indigenous 
Warbler of the island) is also now breeding. On nearing the 
cliffs on the southern coast, we again fell in with our friends 
the Jackdaws in great numbers. They appeared to have nests 
or young ones, as several of the old birds were carrying some¬ 
thing in their mouths. A pair of Blue Thrushes [P etrociucla 
