Note on rare Waders occurring at Kingsbury Reservoir. The pigmy curly (Tringa subarquata), and the greenshank (Totanus Glottis). Two specimens of each of these birds were shot on the banks of the reservoir, on September 2nd, all birds of the -Frederick Bond, Kingsbury, Middlesex, October 16, 1844.

year.

Additional Notes on the Moorhen and Dabchick. I will add here two or three additional notes on the habits of the moorhen and dabchick. The latter bird, on having arrived at its place of nidification, is in the habit of piling together a heap of weeds, resembling a good deal its nests, except that it is rather smaller, and its depression less; and on these piles it rests during the night, until its nest has been constructed. In the course of the summer I visited the mere referred to in my notice of the dabchick; there were probably twelve or fifteen nests which came under my notice, and nearly as many " resting-places." Every one of the nests, without exception, was soaked through and through; none were two inches above the surface of the water; most contained an egg, if not eggs, which were invariably covered. The moorhen, though not usually, if at all, constructing a temporary resting-place analogous to the dabchicks, yet occasionally, at least, builds a second nest, to accommodate a moiety of its young when they have attained a size too large to permit the original one to contain them all. And when the colony is sent to the second nest, one of the old birds accompanies it. An instance of this habit occurred in the vicinity of my father's residence when I was last at home. The female moorhen was the architect, and the subsidiary nest she busied herself in constructing was built on a bough overhanging the water. The weight of the structure at last became too great for the bough to bear; it gave way, and the nest was destroyed by its own weight, which caused it to fall to pieces when it lost its horizontal position. The old bird seemed to be much annoyed at the perversity of the bough and nest, or else at her own want of foresight, and pecked among the debris with every symptom of rage. She soon, however, renewed her labours after having selected a more favourable site, and this time the structure was successfully finished. Another nest in a pond near my father's garden, was, after two or three eggs had been deposited, beautifully lined with last year's oak leaves, regularly arranged, with their points directed upwards.-J. C. Atkinson; Hutton, Berwick-on-Tweed, September 28, 1844.

Note on Ducks nesting in Trees.—When two species of ducks occasionally depart from the usual habits of their kind, by nesting upon trees, it may, I think, be reasonably supposed that they adopt similar methods of bringing their young to the water. The following description, quoted by Mr. Yarrell from a note by Mr. Dann, shows the manner in which this operation is performed by the golden eye, and will probably also be found to apply to the mallard. :-"There have been speculations and opinions as to the mode the golden eye adopts to carry its young down from the holes of the trees in which they are hatched, which are frequently twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, and at some distance from the water. That the bird does transport them is beyond doubt. There is, I believe, but one person who has ever actually witnessed the manner. M. Nilsson was not aware of it. The Laps whom I frequently interrogated were also ignorant beyond the mere fact of the bird carrying them. The clergyman, however, at Quickiock, in Lulean Lapmark, near the source of that chain of vast lakes whence the Lulean river flows, was once a witness. Contrary to the general character of the Lap clergymen in Lapland, this gentleman, with little to employ him, took a great interest in Natural History and Botany. While botanizing by the side of the lake near Quickiock, where golden eyes breed in great numbers, he saw a golden

eye drop into the water, and at the same instant a young one appeared; after watching some time, and seeing the bird fly backwards and forwards from the nest five times, he was enabled to make out that the young bird was held under the bill, but supported by the neck of the parent." Although such a position must be very inconvenient to a duck when flying, it seems to me to be a more satisfactory solution of the difficulty than either of those mentioned in 'The Zoologist' (Zool. 670 and 671). It is very possible, that when the tree selected by the duck for her nest overhangs the water, the young may "drop unhurt," but this is by no means an invariable rule, and evidently was not the case in the instance mentioned by Mr. Selby.-William R. Fisher; Great Yarmouth, September 28, 1844.

Anecdote of annual change of Plumage in a Gull. Some winters past a specimen was brought me that had been shot in the wing; he was put in the garden, and was then la petite Mouette grise, of Brisson, with a white head; the following year, when the bird moulted, he was the Larus ridibundus, with a black head; so he continued changing alternately from white to black as long as the bird lived, which was seven or eight years. This fact does not appear to be noticed by ornithologists, at least as far as my limited observations have gone; but individuals of the same species, assuming different appearances at different seasons of the year, has been well authenticated. This bird, like the rest of the tribe of the gulls, was always a shy and timid bird, and was sure to retreat when any one approached. He was particularly fond of meat, which he preferred to fish and bread, and would catch pieces when thrown to him with surprising dexterity. His chief amusement was to pace up and down for hours together upon a small spot in the garden, until his little feet had padded the earth quite hard. He became quite the pet of the family, and would come to the call of one of its members, a female, to whom he appeared more attached than to any of the others.-J. Chant; 3, Critchell-place, New North-road.

Correction of a previous Error. I hasten to correct the errors which have appeared in my notice of the "Nidification of Birds at Elden." I see you have remarked them both immediately after the communication. The first is the swift, to which name has been annexed the date May 1st, whereas it ought to be June 1st; and with respect to the nightjar, the same mistake is made: the month in which that bird laid its eggs ought to be June. There is one other error in the communication; the county in which Elden is situated is Suffolk, and not Essex, as there stated.-Alfred Newton; Stetchworth, near Newmarket, October 3, 1844.

66

a

Note on a large Viper found in Devonshire. I found a dead viper lying in the road near Holdsworthy, in Devonshire, in the last week of August, measuring three feet two inches in length, dimensions which appeared to me gigantic, as my experience of specimens in other parts of England coincided with those given by Mr. Jenyns, foot and a half to two feet, rarely more." I was afterwards told that vipers of this size were by no means uncommon there, but none of my informants appeared to have measured the individuals they mentioned. In the specimen above mentioned, the upper parts were of an almost uniform light cinereous, the usual dark markings being nearly obliterated, perhaps from age.-Fred. Holme; Penzance, October 21, 1844.

Note on Toads found in Blocks of Stone. I quite agree with you that the statements about toads found in solid stone, are mostly very unsatisfactory (Zool. 677). One instance of the kind I have seen, as briefly stated, 'Mag. Nat. Hist.' ix. 316. The toad appeared to me neither more nor less than our common species, although I certainly did not examine it scientifically. The stone was the new red sandstone of geologists; and was brought up, as I was told, some yards from below the surface. I understood the toad, and the two portions of stone in which it was found inclosed, were deposited in some medical museum at Birmingham. The animal would not have been discovered but for an accident: the workmen were carting the stone away, and the block containing the toad happened to be placed on the top of a great load, and accidentally fell from the cart to the ground, and breaking by the fall, brought to light the incarcerated reptile, which, I conclude, was somewhat injured by the fall, as there was a fresh wound on one side of the head, and it appeared to be blind of one eye. The toad died, I was informed, the second day after it was discovered, partly, in all probability, in consequence of the injury. When I say the block of stone was solid, this statement requires some qualification: the two parts of the stone fitted together exactly, and quite close, except where the cavity was in which the toad lay; but from this cavity there was evidently a flaw on one side towards the extremity, and a discolouring of the substance of the sandstone, so that although the two portions fitted together, they might not have been (on one side of the cavity) very firmly united. This circumstance, perhaps, may detract much from the value of the example; nevertheless, it is unaccountable how the animal could have got into the position in which it was found: it is not conceivable, I think, that it should have been there ever since the first formation of the rock, and there certainly appeared to be no means by which it could have entered the rock in its present state, even admitting (what we know to be the fact) that toads have the power of getting in and out of a very small orifice. — W. T. Bree; Allesley Rectory, Sept. 17, 1844.

Note on the occurrence of the Boar-fish on the Coast of Cornwall. The boar-fish (Zeus Aper) continues to be taken in the neighbourhood of the Runnel-stone rock, and along the coast near the Land's End, a tract till of late not much visited by the Mount's Bay fishing-boats. Fresh discoveries will probably be heard of when we arrive at a more extended knowledge of the hidden secrets of the Lethowstow or Lioness, as the expanse of troubled waters between Scilly and the Land's End is here called.-Frederick Holme; Penzance, October 21, 1844.

Correction of a previous Error. I write to request the correction of a verbal error in the last number (Zool. 679), where, in my note on the Opah, Eccles is stated to be on the western coast of Norfolk, which is wrong, as it is on the north-eastern part of our coast.-J. H. Gurney; Norwich, Sept. 7, 1844.

Note on Duval's Terebratula. In the September number of your interesting periodical (Zool. 679), there appears a notice accompanied by a figure of what is considered to be a new form among the Terebratulæ. However rarely specimens exhibiting this remarkable character (the central perforation) may find their way into English

collections, figures and descriptions of allied species have long been known to many naturalists. The earliest notice of this form that I am acquainted with, occurs in a work by Fabius Colonna, published at Rome in 1616, entitled 'Ecphrasis Stirpium minus cognitarum,' and there called Concha diphya. In the Encyclopédie Métho

dique,' 1797, Brugière has figured another species, subsequently described by Lamarck in 1819 as Terebratula deltoidea. To these, Antonius Catullo has added another species, Ter. Antimonia, in his 'Zoologia Fossile,' 1826. Von Buch, in his valuable monograph on the Terebratulæ (Transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1835), considers the above mentioned three species only as modifications of one form, namely, Ter. diphya. Antonius Catullo has however published (Osservazioni Geognostico-Zoologiche &c. Padua, 1840) some careful and interesting observations on this group, partly in reply to Von Buch, considering them all as distinct species, and adding a fourth, under the name of Ter. mutica. Other species, closely allied to the above, will shortly be published in a work by M. Zeuschner, on the Geology of a portion of the Carpathian mountains. The true age of the deposits to which these singular species belong, is not, I think, quite definitely settled; they are generally considered to belong to the cretaceous series, and it would therefore have been interesting to have ascertained the locality from which the specimen in the collection of Prof. Duval-Jouve was obtained. John Morris; Kensington, Oct. 15, 1844.

Description of Natica intricata, in comparison with Natica glaucina. By JONATHAN COUCH, Esq., F.L.S., &c.

THE only British naturalist to whom I am able to refer, for information concerning Natica intricata, is Dr. Fleming; who, in his 'History of British Animals,' gives the authority of Donovan's 'British Shells,' under the name above given, and to Col. Montagu, who terms it N. Canrena: but he adds, "this species has occurred only to Mr. Donovan." And when I add that Prof. E. Forbes (Malacologia Monensis,' 62) supposes it to be the same with N. nitida, and that it is not to be distinguished from some other foreign species, it will be allowed to be of rare occurrence; and I am therefore led to hope that a description of it, derived from more than one example, and compared with the kindred species, N. glaucina, of about equal size, and both of these with several smaller specimens of each, will be found interesting to the readers of The Zoologist."

The shell termed by Fleming N. intricata, has too rarely come

within the observation of British naturalists to have received so many names as the fancies or mistakes of authors have affixed to the more common species. But to avoid all errors in reference, it is necessary to say, that under the name Natica glaucina is meant that which by Pennant is denominated Nerita glaucina, and, it is believed, also by Montagu; by Fleming, Natica glaucina. Professor Edward Forbes, as quoted above, terms it Natica monilifera, from a supposition that it may be the shell so called by Lamarck; and the same is adopted by Macgillivray, (Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen,' &c. 125).

In September of the present year (1844) I obtained a specimen of Natica intricata, from Penzance; and this I supposed to be the first I had ever seen. But in the course of the same month I obtained a much larger specimen from Plymouth Sound; and a comparison of this pair with a fine specimen of the more common N. glaucina, will enable me to give a measurement and description, sufficiently precise to fix the identity of the rarer species.

The smaller specimen of N. intricata here referred to, measures + of an inch in its longest diameter; but the larger, which was 12 in its longest diameter, and in its shortest diameter, afforded a closer comparison with N. glaucina, my largest specimen of which is 19 by in these diameters. The latter, therefore, is a rounder and more compact shell, the greater comparative length of N. intricata being obvious on inspection. They differ also in the arrangement of the whorls, as well as in their number; which, in N. glaucina, is clearly six, but in N. intricata no more than five can be ascertained. In N. glaucina the second and the smaller whorls are more inflated, and form a higher spire, the decreasing line of separation having a regularly circular sweep; whereas in N. intricata, besides that the whole is much more depressed, the spire is not placed in the centre of the whorl, but inclined to the superior side. Another distinguishing mark is the form and situation of the umbilicus; which in N. glaucina is a simple ascending cavity, in a degree intruded on by a single porcellaneous band, which proceeds from the columella. In N. intricata this band is divided so nearly into two, that the connexion is only by a narrow slip; and the cleft or separating gap, which in the smaller specimen is rounded, and in the larger square, exposes the umbilicus above the columella, and therefore passes directly inward, instead of obliquely upward as in N. glaucina. The pillar thus becomes exposed, uncovered by the band on one side, and the body-whorl on the other, in a manner to be highly characteristic of the adult state. The inferior portion of the band does not stretch fully across to the