Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/119

Rh was no doubt the reason of its seeming tameness, and from which it soon died. Diseases among Wood-Pigeons are rather common, but I never heard before of such a case in a wild Owl.

4th.—A gathering of Long-eared Owls at Calthorpe, near the sea; also a Harrier and twelve Bearded Tits (R. Gurney). Twenty-five Whooper Swans at Hickling (A. Nudd).

5th.— Bittern booming (M.C. Bird).

7th.—A Dunlin† at Keswick.

8th.—Two Bewick's Swans at Yarmouth (B. Dye), and six at Hickling (Bird).

19th.—Bean-Goose at Yarmouth (Dye).

24th.—A Lesser White-fronted Goose (Anser erythropus, L.),† female, obtained in the Wash, and sent from King's Lynn, with some Coots and Knots, to a poulterer at Birmingham, was there detected by Mr. Coburn (Zool. 1900, p. 317), who secured it. Although a large specimen (measuring—culmen 1·5 in., tarsus 2·4 in., length 22 in.), there seems no doubt that Mr. Coburn has correctly identified it. He remarks that its legs were not yellow, but they would naturally change after death to a reddish orange, which is what Mr. Coburn describes them to have been. In this example, which, through the kindness of Mr. Coburn, was exhibited at a meeting of the Norwich Naturalists' Society, the white forehead extends nearly up to a point between the eyes, which is generally considered a distinctive mark of A. erythropus. Some ornithologists would unite A. erythropus and A. albifrons, but in that case the American A. gambeli cannot be kept apart, and there is an immense difference in size between the two extremes; and, as the habitats of A. erythropus and A. albifrons are to some extent different, although both inhabit Central Europe and some part of Asia, it seems undesirable to unite them. Seebohm has done so, but they are kept apart by Count Salvadori, our latest authority. It is possible that a White-fronted Goose shot on Breydon in January, 1880, and described by Mr. Stevenson as somewhat small, may have been A. erythropus, a bird, as Mr. Coburn's specimen shows, easy to pass over.

7th.—An unfortunate Bittern shot in the suburbs of Norwich, close to the City Road Station, where there is a small expanse of water (T. E. Gunn).