NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
297
shot it. The falcon was a very fine specimen ; it weighed 2lbs.
83/4ozs., length 181/2 inches, from tip to tip of wings 42 inches ;
the tarsus or metatarsus 21/2, the longest toe from base to tip of
claw 3 inches.—(Rev.) A. Bertram Hutton, The Rectory, Pitsea,
April 8th, 1904.
Protective Colouring among Birds.—At the meeting
of the Club on February 13th last, the Rev. A. Bertram Hutton,
Rector of Pitsea, Essex, brought up some photographs and
lantern-slides showing how the young Oyster-Catcher (Haema-
topus ostralegus), the eggs of the same bird, and those of the
Ringed Plover (AEgialitis hiaticula) and the Lesser Tern (Sterna
minuta), are protectively coloured. The photograph of the young
Oyster-Catcher was perhaps the most striking, and was one of
those shown as a lantern slide. Mr. Hutton said : "It was taken
on June 3rd, 1903, at the bird colony near Ravenglass, off the
coast of Cumberland. My wife and I had visited the place for
the purpose of bird photography, and as we were walking over a
stretch of sand, in which coarse grass, such as is usually found
on sand-hills, was growing, my wife espied this young Oyster-
Catcher shamming death. So well did he do it, that she really
thought he was dead ; however, a little prod sent him running
for dear life, with the photographer carrying the camera after
him. He soon subsided, however, and again 'played possum,'
lying, as still as death, with closed eyes. I took a negative of him
in this position, and then said to myself, 'Yes, you match your
environment marvellously now, but what if I turn you over and
show your little white breast and body ?' So I gently turned him
over and there he lay, still like death, with his little feet waving
in the air quite limply, the sun pouring down on him sufficiently
strongly to induce him to jump up and run to escape the heat, one
would have thought, but no, the other instinct was the stronger,
and I secured my second negative."
Notes on Essex Shore-Birds.—Mr. C. J. Cornish, in the
course of a very interesting article on "The Results of Wild
Bird Protection" in The Cornhill Magazine for March, 1901,
makes some valuable remarks on our Essex shore-birds, which
will be welcomed by our ornithological readers:—
" Though the Essex coast is so inaccessible and remote, the steady 'egging'
for market threatened many kinds of birds with extermination. It had been as