Giglioli, of Florence, writes that P. alleni has been taken both in Italy and Sicily in December; see also Giglioli, 'Avifauna Italica,' pp. 353, 354. It is also true, as Prof. Newton remarks, that few species escape from a cage more readily than those of this genus, because they look bulky, while in reality they can squeeze through a very small opening. Enquiries ascertained that it was not a fugitive from Woburn Park, where a number of P. smaragdonotus were turned out in 1896 and 1897. All Crakes and Gallinules are wanderers, because they fly high and are probably easily carried away by storms, and it is easier to explain the appearance of Porzana maruetta in Berkshire and the Hebrides, of Porphyriola martinica in Ireland, of Aramides cayennensis in Wiltshire, and of P. alleni at Yarmouth by the theory of their being storm-driven migrants assisted by ships, than by the alternative theory of escape. There are scores of authentic records of Water-Rails, Corn-Crakes, Gallinules, and Porphyrios being caught on ships. On the same day a large Diver†, thought at first to be Adam's Diver, was picked up on the shore at Caister, and taken to Mr. E.C. Saunders; but although nearly the whole of the lower mandible and about two-thirds of the upper were white, the bill was not sufficiently upturned for that species, judging from Prof. Collett's plate and article and from my father's Pakefield specimen. Neither can I at all think that the specimen figured in Babington's 'Birds of Suffolk' is really Colymbus adamsi, though he thought it was. Our museum contains a good example from the north of Norway, obtained at Tromsoe by Col. Feilden, which shows clearly the difference in the bill.
Avicultural Notes.
Eagle Owl.—On February 1st one of my late father's Eagle Owls died; it was believed to be between thirty and forty years of age, and a few weeks after its companion, thirty years old, also died. My father had many of these fine Owls, but he never equalled the success of Mr. Meade Waldo, who has two in Kent, one of which—the male bird—is undoubtedly seventy-one, and the other—the female—is believed to be fifty-six, and is the parent of ninety young ones. Compared to such Nestors our birds were juvenile. There is no easier bird to keep than this
