NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
335
the museum idea the student has an opportunity of making a real study of this
instructive group, and a visit to the gallery will convince the most sceptical of
the immense difference in educational efficiency between mere reading or look-
ing at pictures and the actual sight of these skeleton-models. The ordinary-
visitor may now form a truthful mental picture of some of the most wonderful
of the Creator's handiworks, and upholders of the value of museums will be
furnished with another and most convincing concrete vindication. Essex
claims no less than ten Cetaceans as occasional or constant visitors to her
shores, and hence this gallery ought to have special interest to local
naturalists—an interest intensified when they see the skeleton-model of the
Essex Rudolphi's Rorqual (Balaenoptera borealis) 35 feet long, which was
stranded on the foreshore at Tilbury in October, 1897, forming a conspicuous
object in the new gallery. (See Mr. Crouch's paper on this Whale in the
Essex Natualist for 1888, vol. ii., pp. 41-46.)—Ed.
AVES.
The Introduction of the Rufous Tinamu (Rhynchotus rufescens) into
Essex.—In 1888 we published in the Essex Natualist (vol. ii., pp. 102-11) a
paper by Mr. J. E. Harting on the introduction by Mr, J. Bateman of this
bird into Essex, at Brightlingsea, together with a figure and a detailed account
of its specific characters, habits, and distribution. Subsequently in the same
volume (p. 206) Mr. Bateman gave the latest particulars of the fate of the
colony. The original experiment in the acclimatisation of the Rhynchotus,
however, was not permanently successful, because the Essex and Suffolk Fox-
hounds left Brightlingsea practically unhunted during 1886-7 and in conse-
quence the foxes and tinamus lay down together—the latter inside. A few
wary old bachelor birds survived till 1891, but then disappeared. Mr. Bate-
man has now, by the kindness of a friend at Buenos Ayres, got a fresh con-
signment of these beautiful game birds, half of which have already been
enlarged in standing beans on the farm of Mr. Frank Girling, of Moverons,
and half are being kept in reserve. On the former occasion Mr. Bateman
issued a printed card, with a picture of the tinamu, expressing a hope that his
neighbours and sportsmen generally in Essex, would refrain from shooting the
birds should they wander off his land. This hops he now renews, and
certainly such an interesting experiment should be encouraged by all sports-
men and naturalists.
PISCES.
Sturgeon (Acipenser sturio, L.J at Maldon.—On Monday evening,
June 6th, Abraham Sexton and his son, while fishing in a punt on the Black-
water, succeeded in capturing, about 300 yards below the point of the reach,
a fine sturgeon, 7ft. 6in. in length, and weighing 1cwt. 2qrs. 24lbs. The fish
had apparently come into the shallow water to spawn, and was stranded in
mid-stream, the tide being last quarter ebb, so that there was hardly sufficient
water to cover it. Sexton struck it with his punt "shoving" stick, and with
the aid of his son hauled it into the punt and brought it ashore. The fish was
claimed by Mr. F, H. Barbrook, as receiver of Admiralty Droits, on behalf of
the Crown, but it was subsequently sold to the captor for a purely nominal
sum. The incident is worth recording as the sturgeon is rare in Essex waters.