Bulletin be purchasable in England, or if it be sold at all; if not, it ought to be. In April last we were informed (but too late for giving the information in our May Number, and illness prevented our doing so in the July one) that of

The Memoirs, or Transactions, of the Geological Society of France, the first part, or half of the first volume, was then nearly finished. The work is of quarto size, and the first volume is to contain 25 plates and maps. The first part, or half volume, will cost, to members, 3 francs; to purchasers who are not members, 10 francs. The following memoirs had, in April, been printed :- Lill upon Gallicia, with a map and sections; De la Beche on Spezzia, with a map; Vivioni on fossil plants of Stradella; Poreto on the Tortonese country; Reynaud on Corsica; Tournal on the igneous rocks of the Corbières; Botta upon Lebanon; De Beaumont upon the lignites of the tertiary basin of Northern France; Steininger on the fossils of the Eifel; and others.

From the same obliging correspondent we received some information on

The Geological Society of France, which we may as well give in this place. It is this: "Our Society is increasing; we are already 230 members: Prince Christian of Denmark has lately joined us. We are in correspondence of exchange with 40 different learned societies or individuals publishing periodical works. Our collection is also increasing rapidly, and contains upwards of 5000 specimens. Our extraordinary general meeting will, this summer, probably take place in September, at Clermont in the Auvergne, a capital place for a geological congress. We are in hope of a full attendance of persons devoted to every branch of the natural sciences."

The London Natural History Society have fixed the amount of the subscription at 17. per annum, to be paid quarterly in advance; the admission, 5s. Any person wishing to become a member is requested to apply by letter (post paid) to Mr. Ogilvie, 10. Gloucester Street, Queen Square, who will furnish him with copies of the regulations, and any other information he may require. The institutors of this Society have been prompted to form it, in the conviction that none of those already existing in London "afford sufficient and general facilities to the student, at a reasonable expense." The Society's objects are, the "attaining of mutual improvement in natural history, in all its branches, by means of meetings, excursions, and the formation of a library and

museum."

447

SHORT COMMUNICATIONS.

BIRDS.-The Honey Buzzard (Falco apivórus L.) in Ireland; and some Facts on its Habits.-At a meeting, on July 23. 1833, of the council of the Belfast Natural History Society, Mr. Wm. Thompson, V. P., stated, that, on the 11th of June last, a fine female specimen of the honey buzzard, which is unrecorded as having ever before occurred in Ireland, was, when in company with a similar bird, most probably the female, shot by Robert George Bomford, Esq., in his demesne of Annadale, in the vicinity of Belfast; and who, on being informed of the rarity of the bird, had most handsomely presented it to the Belfast museum. Mr. Thompson, who saw the specimen when fresh, related that the bill and forehead were covered with cow-dung, in such a manner as to lead him to suppose the bird had, in that excrement, been searching for insects. On examination of the stomach, which was quite full, it was found to contain a few of the larvæ, and some fragments of perfect coleopterous insects; several whitishcoloured hairy caterpillars; the pupae of a butterfly, and also of the six-spot burnet moth (Zygae na filipéndulæ); together with some pieces of grass, which, it is presumed, were taken in with the last-named insect, it being on the stalks of grass that the pupa of this species of Zyga'na are chiefly found. Mr. Thompson remarked that this insectivorous food must, to the honey buzzard, have been a matter of choice, the bird being in the full vigour of its powers, and the district in which it was killed abounding with such birds as, were they its wished-for prey, it might have easily captured and destroyed.

[The Chiffchaff is the Sylvia rufa of Latham, not the Sylvia hippolais of Bechstein.] - Mr. Thompson likewise mentioned, that, having read an article in the second number of the Field Naturalist's Magazine, from the pen of the editor, entitled "The chiffchaff proved to be the Sylvia rùfa, hitherto confounded with the S. hippolais of the Continent," he had this day visited Colin Glen, the principal haunt of the chiffchaff in the neighbourhood of Belfast, for the purpose of obtaining the bird, and comparing it with the description there given. On this occasion, a specimen was fortunately procured; which, on examination, proved, as Mr. Thompson had anticipated from Professor Rennie's admirable elucidation of the species Sylvia

hippolais and rùfa, to be the latter bird. In consequence of this result, the Sylvia hippolàis of Bechstein must now be erased from the catalogue of birds of the north of Ireland (and, he has little doubt, from that of Ireland generally), and the Sylvia rùfa of Latham be inserted in its place. Mr. Thompson could not, however, omit stating that his own observations forbade him to coincide with Professor Rennie in the remark that Temminck (whose description is evidently intended to be general) is "undoubtedly in error" when he describes the "habite" of the Sylvia rùfa to be "les grands bois, particulièrement dans ceux de pins et de sapins [extensive woods, especially pine and fir forests]: " it being chiefly in extensive plantations and among pines and firs that he has himself seen the bird; although, like Professor Rennie, he has also known it to appear in other localities, and has occasionally observed it to frequent trees of other kinds than those mentioned by M. Temminck.

[The Willow Wren (Sýlvia Tróchilus) is more numerous in the North of Ireland than the Chiffchaff.]- Mr. Thompson remarked, that the chiffchaff is not by any means so widely dispersed over the plantations of the north of Ireland as the willow wren (Sýlvia Trochilus Latham); the latter bird being fully as abundant there as he has ever found it to be in any part of England or Scotland, or of the many continental countries he has visited. Mr. Thompson thus noticed the S. Trochilus, on account of Montagu's statement, that its migration "does not extend far to the west in England, as it is rarely met with in Cornwall," having recently again appeared in the edition of his Ornithological Dictionary edited by Professor Rennie, as well as in Mr. Selby's invaluable Illustrations of British Ornithology; and from which it might be inferred that Ireland, owing to her still more westerly situation, is not included within the range of the willow wren's migration. — Belfast, Aug. 6. 1833.

A Pair of Eagles, I am sorry I cannot state of which species, were observed, previously to Christmas of 1832, upon Brandon rabbit warren, in Norfolk, about which place they had remained some time, and committed unwelcome havoc among the rabbits. The warreners made several unsuccessful attempts to shoot them, but at length both were caught in large iron traps each baited with a rabbit. One of the eagles, it is reported, after becoming entrapped, removed the trap, of seven pounds' weight, by its efforts, to the distance of twenty yards, and was even after this taken alive. It is said that its wings measured seven feet in extent. Their roosting-place was found to be in a plantation of fir trees in

the neighbourhood; and the ground around the trees on which they roosted, it is said, was found covered with the skins of rabbits. Brandon Warren is about thirteen or fourteen miles from Bury St. Edmunds. I wish some correspondent who saw the captured birds would tell us their species, and what additional authentic facts he knows respecting them.-H. T. Bury St. Edmunds, March 1. 1833.

Cygnus Bewickii. (Vol. V. p. 72. 700.) I am much inclined to think that the identical specimen of this swan that was taken upon the coast of Northumberland had been for some time previously in my possession. About five or six weeks before the time at which it was met with, four or five wild swans alighted in the river Ettrick, where one of them was shot, and, one of its wings only having been broken, captured. I learned afterwards that its companions, after the shot, flew down the valley for some miles; but, finding they had left their friend, they returned, and flew round the place to try and get him along with them. The wounded swan was sent to me, and I put it into a large pond surrounded by trees, and fed it; but it preferred the pondweed [Potamogèton] and Myriophyllum [most probably M. spicàtum], with which the place was full, and seemed not much disconsolate for nearly a week. We observed that the bill and form of the head seemed somewhat different from those of the tame species, and that while swimming it carried its head more as a goose does, that is, with the head and bill horizontal, and not with the graceful arch of the common swan. Cold weather came on, and snow, and then it became restless, and one day a friend who was residing with me, while walking out, met with its track among the snow, and followed it for more than a mile, and brought it back. Two mornings after this we observed its track to the river and back again to the pond. It had done this for the purpose of reconnoitring; for the next morning its track was again traced to the river; but it never returned, and was never more seen. I made enquiries not only down the Yarrow, but, by means of fishers and others, all the way down to Kelso, thirty miles from where it entered the Yarrow, and could obtain no account of it, which I must have done, had it been shot or taken, for it could not use its wings in any manner. Of course it must have passed Kelso in safety, and without doubt would reach the sea. I afterwards saw, from a notice (I think in this Magazine, but I cannot find the place), that a swan with a broken wing had been taken on the coast of Northumberland, of a new species, and called Cygnus Bewickii; and upon comparing the time with that at which mine went down the VOL. VI.-No. 35.

GG

Yarrow, something less than a month had intervened. As soon as I had ascertained that mine was away in the manner I have described, I concluded that it would reach the sea, at the latest, during the second night, concealing itself by the banks among underwood during the day. - W. L., Selkirk

shire.

P.S. The following winter I had another swan sent me, that I am inclined to think is of the same species. It was one of twelve or thirteen that rested for a while, as they often do, in St. Mary's Loch; and it also was shot at, and had a wing broken. It could not be taken, and the others left the loch. For nearly a week it was lost sight of, until a shepherd ascertained, by its footprints in the snow, that it regularly ascended a high hill in the morning, and returned to the water to feed during the night. He accordingly tracked it, and found it sitting on the very top of the hill, and secured it by the help of his dogs as it was making for the loch. It is, I believe, still alive, and in the possession of Robert Pringle, Esq., of Clifton, M.P. for Selkirkshire. — W. L. Feb. 25. 1833.

Geese from the Netherlands shot on the Trent. Just before I left Derbyshire, five geese had been shot upon the Trent, with brass collars round their necks, which stated that they had come from Baak, near Zutphen, in Guelderland. Sir G. Crewe is to have one of them; but I have not seen them at present. I had heard that they are of the species called the laughing goose [Anser erythropus Flem.]. They were perhaps alarmed at the noise of the bombardment at Antwerp. -Andrew Bloxam. Rugby, near Dunchurch, January 1. 1833. (In a Letter to the Rev. W. T. Bree, Allesley Rectory, Warwickshire.)

A Duck that had strayed from Denmark (?) shot in Sussex. "As some people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in Sussex, they killed a duck in that dreadful winter 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck, on which were engraved the arms of the king of Denmark." (White, in the Letter to Daines Barrington dated Feb. 12. 1771.) J. D.

Notes on, and a Description of, the Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus), as the same has been observed near Southminster, on the Coast of Essex; also a List of the Birds seen, in the Course of Twelve Months, in the Neighbourhood of Southminster.

The black-headed gulls make their appearance on this coast (Essex) about the third week in March; at which time the common gulls (Làrus cànus) cease to roam inland in search of food, the black-headed gulls supplying their place. On the first arrival of the black-headed gulls, the heads of