208



Correspondence.



WAGLER’S WOODPECKER


Sirs, —In the Cambridge Natural History there is mentioned a genus

of Woodpecker which lives partly oil the sap of trees. In the Royal

Natural History there is an account from an eye-witness of this bird

drilling holes in some species of maple.


May not M. Delacour's bird belong to that genus ? If so his diet

may not be so odd as he thinks.


Herbert L. Sich.



HUME’S WHITE-EARED BULBUL

Sirs,— In the current number of the Avicullural Magazine,

I notice among the list of the Zoological Society’s Indian collection

the “ White-cheeked ” and the “ White-eared ” Bulbuls. May I

inquire whether Malpastes humii, Hume’s White-eared Bulbul,

has ever been imported ? In 1909 I found this bird plentiful near

Jhelum and Tangrat, and have no doubt that it could easily be

procured, as my friends and I caught several of them. Oates

described this bird from a single specimen in the British Museum,

and owing to this fact the bird as a distinct species has probably been

overlooked. That it is a distinct species I think there can be no

doubt.


Raymond W. Cooper.


[Hume’s White-eared Bulbul may well have been imported and

overlooked by aviculturists, who rarely know the exact localities

from which their birds are derived, and are not so quick to observe

minute details of colouring and so forth as are the Cabinet

ornithologists. —Eds.]



PILEATED JAYS


Sirs,— Mr. Astley’s note on p. 195 concerning “ Pileated Jays ”

was the cause of my looking up the somewhat scanty literature I have

here at my disposal on the identity of a pair of Pileated Jays, which

I also purchased from Mr. Rogers, under the impression that my birds

were Cyanocorax chrysops. I was merely waiting for the birds, who

have now moulted well, to rear some young next year.


The species I am referring to may well be called “ pileated ', if by



