Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/483

Rh The analysis of the Kestrels' pellets likewise determines its usual food, though, as these pellets are not found in quantities together, like those of Owls, but here and there sparingly, the same amount of certainty cannot be guaranteed. Most of those that have come under my personal notice have been composed entirely of the wing-cases of all sorts of beetles and the wings of flies, and sometimes the remains of a small Vole or Mouse, but I have never discovered the remains of birds or Rabbits. Indeed the bird is hardly large enough to attack the latter successfully, though a gamekeeper giving evidence before the Vole Plague Committee says:—"I have also seen one lift a young Rabbit." Whether "lift" is used in the Scotch sense of "carry off," or merely to "raise from the ground," does not appear; but the fact is unimportant in any case, and the Committee rightly came to the conclusion that "the food of this bird is known to consist almost exclusively of Mice, Grasshoppers, coleopterous insects and their larvæ."

after serving the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Massachusetts, for thirty-five years, has resigned his position as Director and Curator. Dr. W. McM. Woodworth has been appointed Assistant in charge of the Museum.—Athenæum.

Society for the Biological Exploration of the Dutch Colonies has organized a scientific expedition to Java, which is to start next October under the direction of Dr. Max Weber, Professor of Zoology at Amsterdam. The object of the expedition, which is to last about a year, is the zoological, botanical, and oceanographical exploration of the seas of the Indian Archipelago.

writing to the 'Times' from Mevagissey, Cornwall (August), states:—

Sharks positively swarm just now in the 20-fathom water between Plymouth and the Land's End. I have been catching both the Blue and