MISCELLANY. 
437 
Occurrence of Velia rivulorum , Jan. 5, 1838.—On Jan. 5, this year, I 
observed two specimens of this interesting little insect, swimming about quite 
briskly in a small stream here.— Henry Buist, Law Park Cottage, March 12, 
1838. 
The Nightingale to the North of Doncaster. —Almost all ornithological 
works concur in informing their readers that Doncaster forms the northern limit 
of the Nightingale in England. This, however, is incorrect. We have ourselves 
heard it near Campsall, and in a wood adjoining Owston Hall, both several miles 
north of Doncaster. Wm. H. Rudston Read, Esq., of Friekley Hall, in this 
county, informs us that several of these nocturnal choristers visit Hooton Pagnell 
Common; and Charles Waterton, Esq., of Walton Hall, near Wakefield, that 
they occur in his beautiful park every spring. It has been seen near York ; and 
lastly, Mr. Yarrell notices its occurrence so far north as Cumberland.— Ed. 
Singular Locality for the Nest of the Robin Redbreast. —A few days 
since, at Londsborough Park, near Market Weighton, Yorkshire, on the premises 
of James Matthison, Esq., there was found an old tea-kettle exposed on bare 
ground, and on examination it w r as found to be inhabited by a Robin Redbreast, 
with four young ones, which are all doing well.— York Herald , Mag 24, 1838. 
In the garden of Mr. Evans, florist, of Rotherham, a Robin Redbreast built 
her nest in an old tin tea-kettle, in which she has laid six eggs, and young ones 
will undoubtedly appear in a few days, as she has been sitting more than a week. 
— Sheffield Iris, Aprils, 1838. 
Lophius piscatorius. —When walking along the Sands one day last spring, I 
observed a large fish lying at the mouth of a small fresh-water stream, the 
Swelkin-burn. Its appearance struck me so much at the time that I took a 
sketch of it, and afterwards, on procuring Yarrell’s invaluable work on British 
Fishes , I discovered it to be the fish there named Lophius piscatorius, the “ Sea 
Devil.”— Henry Buist, Law Park Cottage, St.Andrews, March 12, 1838. 
Remarks on Bats.— M. de Blainville comes to the following conclusions 
concerning Bats, in a memoir recently laid before the French Academy of Sciences: 
—1st, that they existed before the formation of the tertiary strata of northern 
countries, as they are found in the gypsum of the neighbourhood of Paris; 2nd, 
that these Cheiroptera were, very probably, cotemporary with Anoplotherium 
and Palceotherium ; 3rd, that they have continued to exist from that time to the 
present without interruption, as they are found in the diluvium of caverns, and in 
osseous breccia; 4th, that the ancient Cheiroptera differed but little from the 
species now inhabiting the same countries.— Athenoeum, June 2, 1838. 
New Herring found on the Coast of Iceland. —Among the natural curi¬ 
osities brought last summer from Iceland by Mr. Proctor, Sub-curator to the 
Durham University Museum, is a fish belonging to the abdominal Malacoptery- 
vol. hi.—no. xxm. 3 M 
