Mr. R.J. Ussher has recently discovered bones of the Great Auk in Co. Waterford. In a communication to the 'Irish Naturalist,' Mr. Ussher states he has investigated some kitchen-middens on the Waterford coast, from which he not only obtained bones or horns of Ox, Goat, Horse, Pig, Red-deer, and domestic Fowl, but also an abundance of shells of Oysters, Cockles, Mussels, and Limpets, with many pot-boilers or burned stones. But the great find consisted of some birds' bones, which were submitted to Prof. Newton, who examined them with the great assistance of Dr. Gadow. Prof. Newton, writing to Mr. Ussher, observes:—"I congratulate you on possessing remains of at least two Great Auks, for you will notice that the two coracoids are of the same side.... Read in the light of these relics, Mr. Davis's famous bird of 1834 must have been visiting the home of its forefathers."
On a subsequent visit Mr. Ussher again found bones, which Dr. Gadow determined as containing a humerus, tibia, and metatarsus of Great Auk. Remains of this bird have already been recorded from Co. Antrim, and the present discovery shows that the range of the Great Auk extended in Ireland nearly as far south as 52° N. latitude.
In the Bulletin de la Soc. Zool. de France, Mai-Juin, 1897, Mons. Ch. van Kemper gives details of colour variation, hybridity, and "anomalies" in birds and mammals in his own collection. Ornithologists will find much to interest them in the records of the colour variation of the thirty-seven birds enumerated, while several British varieties will be seen to have found a home in this collection.
Canon Ingram, rector of St. Margaret, Lothbury, writing to the 'City Press' in July, says:—"A pair of Wood-Pigeons have built their nest in one of the trees in the little garden-churchyard in front of my rectory house in Ironmonger Lane, and the young birds were hatched last Thursday. The tree is within a hundred yards of historic Cheapside, the busiest thoroughfare probably in London; at about the same distance from the Bank of England; and within, I suppose, two hundred yards as the crow flies of the Mansion House. I should imagine that there is no previous record in the modern history of London of a pair of wild birds building their nest and rearing their young so near the very heart of the City."
'The House Sparrow,' Passer domesticus, is the title of a leaflet, written by Miss Ormerod and Mr. Tegetmeier, which has just appeared. In it is condensed much of the authentic information which has been given by
