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Show 1885.] MR. H. E. DRESSER ON ^EGIALITIS VOCIFERA. 835 Mr. Sclater remarked that this species was of interest to naturalists as having been formerly supposed, through an error of the late Dr. J. E. Gray, to occur in Great Britain, and accordingly retained in the British fauna until M . Lataste (Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1877, p. 359) had shown the mistake. The present specimens confirmed the locality assigned to the species by M . Lataste, and, besides this, Mr. Boulenger had informed Mr. Sclater that the British Museum had recently received a specimen of this Newt from Trebizond, and that it had been found by Kessler near Poti in Transcaucasia, and at Resht in Persia. Mr. H. E. Dresser exhibited a specimen of the American Killdeer Plover (Mgialitis vocifera), shot by Mr. F. Jenkinson at Tresco, Scilly, on the 14th January last, this being the second record of its occurrence in Great Britain *. Mr. Jenkinson had given him the following particulars of its capture, viz.:-"On Sunday, 1 lth January, 1885, I was walking home by the Long Pool on Tresco, and instinctively stopped to look at a favourite bit of mud and rushes at the west end. While I was looking, a bird flitted a few yards and settled on the grass between me and the mud ; and as it did so it uttered a gentle half note which I felt sure belonged to no bird that I had seen before. " It was tame enough, and remained about for three da37s, its return to that particular spot apparently coinciding each day with the rise of the tide. On Monday I missed it, sitting at 25 yards after a long crawl. I half hoped that the keeper, who is a better shot than I am, would go after it, so I did not disturb it much. On Tuesday I put it up unexpectedly within a yard or two of me from behind a wall where 1 was waiting. The chestnut tail-coverts were very distinct as it flew away, uttering cries veritably " vociferous," but very plaintive and musical. I did not fire at it on that occasion. Next day I began by shooting a Ring Dotterel by mistake; I could not see the other anywhere ; the day wore on, and I had to leave next morning. It was getting quite late when, walking up to the other end of the pool, I saw, beyond a raised causeway which crosses the pool there, a bird running on the wet ground. I fired instantly and the bird just uttered one characteristic cry, which assured me that it was the one of which I was in search, and lay there dead. "The name Killdeer Plover at once occurred to me ; and next day I found a small book on American birds, and on reading the description of that species I found that it agreed with my specimen. The bird was a female in good plump condition, and quite the reverse of an exhausted straggler." Mr. Dresser stated that the specimen, the occurrence of which had been already recorded in the ' Zoologist,' 1885, p. 113, had been handed to him by Mr. Jenkinson with a request that he would exhibit it, so that there should be no doubt as to its being referable to AZgialitis vocifera. Mr. D'esser was also indebted to Mr. W . Eagle Clarke, for the 1 For a previous record see Ibis, 1862. p. 275. |