264 BRITISH BIRDS. 



ON THE COLOUR OF THE SNOWY OWL. 

 Mb. C. W. Beebe, in the Eleventh Annual Report of the 

 New York Zoological Society, contributes a most interesting 

 article on the 0\\\s of the Nearctic Region. In the course 

 of his remarks he refers to a point with regard to the plumage 

 of the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca (L.)), which appears to 

 have escaped the notice of British ornithologists. 



Remarking that " Old male birds are sometimes almost 

 pure white in colour," he goes on to cite a statement made by 

 Mr. Nelson of a bird shot in Alaska in which the plumage was 

 suffused with " a rich and extremely beautiful shade of clear 

 lemon-yellow, exactly as the rose-blush clothes the- entire 

 plumage of some Gulls in Spring. The morning after the bird 

 was killed the colour was gone, the plumage being dead white." 



So far as we can make out no such fleeting colour appears 

 to have been noticed in any British or European examples 

 of this species. 



It is also a matter for debate as to whether the whiteness 

 above referred to is really a sign of age or an individual 

 variation. 



SOOTY SHEARWATER IN KENT. 



On October 14th, 1907, a Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus 

 J. F. Gmelin) was shot along the shore of Dungeness Point, 

 in Kent. It proved to be a male by dissection, and was 

 examined by myself on October 21st, soon after it had been 

 stuffed. Several birds of this species have occurred in 

 Sussex, but so far as I am aware this is the first one recorded 

 from Kent. 



N. F. TiCEHUEST. 



4!- 4f -Jf 



Richaed's Pipits in Noefolk. — A specimen of Richard's 

 Pipit {Anthus richardi) was netted on the North Denes at 

 Yarmouth on 22nd October, 1907 (B. Dye, ZooL, 1907, p. 428). 

 Another — a male — was shot on the " Norfolk coast " on 

 12th October, and a female near the same spot a few days 

 later (C. Borrer, Field, 16, xi., 1907). 



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Abnoemal Blackbied's Eggs laid foe seveeal yeaes 

 in the same Locality. — Mr. W. Binnie, of Aberdeen, records 

 that in 1903 he found a Blackbird's nest A\ith three pure blue 

 eggs ; on 19th April, 1905, near the same spot, another nest 

 with two pure blue eggs and one of the ordinary type ; these 

 being taken, another nest was made close by, and on 30th 

 April contained a similar clutch. Again the nest was robbed 

 and another nest made, and a similar clutch of eggs laid by 



