have more the appearance of the ordinary tail-feathers of the young Cuckoo soon after the tail has reached its full growth:  the moult in this bird must have been very irregular, as it was not completed in June, when, as a rule, it would have been in full plumage, unless, as may possibly be the case, this bird was the produce of a second laying during the southern migration, and consequently, instead of a year, be only about six months old.  This, however, is not a very common state of plumage; but it is by no means uncommon to find a Cuckoo in May or June with a good deal of rusty reddish barred with brown, forming a sort of collar on the breast.  I merely mention these rather abnormal changes of plumage, as they may be interesting to any of my Guernsey readers into whose hands a Cuckoo may fall in a state of change and prove a puzzle as to its identity.  The Cuckoo departs from the Channel Islands much about the same time that it does from England on its southern migration in August or September.  Occasionally, however, this southern migration during the winter seems to be doubted, as a clerical friend of mine once told me that a brother clergyman, a well educated and even a learned man, told him, when talking about Cuckoos and what became of them in winter, that “it was a mistake to suppose they migrated, but that they all turned into Sparrow-hawks in the winter.”  As my friend said, could any one believe this of a well-educated man in the nineteenth century?

The Cuckoo is mentioned in Professor Ansted’s list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey and Sark.  There are three specimens, one adult and two young, in the Museum, as well as some very ordinary eggs.

85.  KINGFISHER. Alcedo ispida, Linnaeus.  French, “Martin Pecheur.”—­The Kingfisher is by no means uncommon, is generally spread over the Islands, and is resident and breeds at all events in Guernsey, if not in the other Islands also.  It is generally to be seen amongst the wild rocks which surround L’Ancresse Common, where it feeds on the small fish left in the clear pools formed amongst the rocks by the receding tide; it is also by no means uncommon amongst the more sheltered bays in the high rocky part of the Island; it is also to be found about the small ponds in various gardens.  About those in Candie Garden I have frequently seen Kingfishers, and they breed about the large ponds in the Vale in Mr. De Putron’s grounds; they also occasionally visit the wild rocky islets to the northward of Herm, even as far as the Amfrocques, the farthest out of the lot.  As well as about the Vale ponds, the Kingfisher breeds in holes in the rocks all round the Island.  I have not myself seen it in Alderney, but Captain Hubbach writes me word he saw one there about Christmas, 1862.  I think its numbers are slightly increased in the autumn by migrants, as I have certainly seen more specimens in Mr. Couch’s shop at that time of year than at any other; this may perhaps, however, be accounted for, at all events partially, by its being protected by the Sea Bird Act during the summer and in early autumn, where the ‘Martin pecheur’ appears as one of the “Oiseaux de Mer.”