there is nothing of this colour, but a general tone of ashy brown with striated lines of brown. One of the first two specimens referred to was brought alive to Mr. Vingoe, and he had a good opportunity of observing the colour of the iris, which was a bright vermilion. This, I believe, is the colour in the adult bird. In the specimen I examined yesterday the colour of the iris was bright yellow. The weight of this little bird was just over one ounce, and the length, with extended neck, to the end of the tail-feathers, exactly seven inches and a half.—Edward Hearle Rodd (Penzance).
Skua and Shearwater at Christchurch and Poole Harbour.—When at Bournemouth in August I saw, in the shop of Mr. Hart, the birdstuffer, a good specimen of the Common Skua, which he informed me had been obtained on the 6th January, 1876. A boy had observed it in a ploughed field at Christchurch, and knocked it down with a stick. It is an adult bird and in good plumage. Mr. Hart also showed me a specimen of the Greater, or Cinereous, Shearwater, which had been captured by some fishermen in Poole Harbour on the 7th June last, apparently a female bird, and also in good plumage.—Marcus S.C. Rickards (37, Cornwallis Crescent, Clifton).
Early Arrival of Wild Geese.—Brent Geese and White-fronted Geese appeared on the North Devon coast as early as the beginning of October. In the first week of that month four White-fronted Geese, all splendid birds, were shot out of a flock on Braunton Marsh.—Murray A. Mathew (Bishop's Lydeard).
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
Entomological Society of London.
October 3, 1877.—Prof. Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., President, in the chair.
Donations to the Library were announced, and thanks voted to the donors.
Mr. W.L. Distant exhibited a specimen of the ravages of Dermestes vulpinus (Fab.) in a cargo of dried hides from China. On the arrival of the hides in this country they were found to be infested and gnawed into holes by swarms of the insect in their different stages, causing a damage of from fifteen to twenty per cent, on the value of the cargo. It is not unusual to see this well-known insect amongst these articles, but quite unprecedented to find it in such numbers and causing such an amount of damage. In fact, its appearance had quite paralyzed the importation of the hides, and gave further proof of the value of Economic Entomology in the arts and manufactures.
