CORRESPONDENCE. 81 



Maopie and CncKoo. — The fact recorded by the Rev. O. M. Feilden 

 a8 to the nesting of the Magpie is extraordinarj', but requires more 

 evidence ere we can accept as proved that which may have been evolved 

 from a fortuitous chain of circumstances. Concerning the question as 

 to that feathered mystery, the Cuckoo, it will I think have come under 

 the notice of every observer, as of myself, that now and then a Cuckoo's 

 egg is found under circumstances — such as in a nest situated in a brush- 

 wood stack — which positively forbid the hj'pothesis that it could have 

 been laid in the ordinai-y manner. In the Field of July 1st, 1876, an 

 account is given of the finding of a Cuckoo's egg in a Flycatcher's nest in 

 a hollow tree, the orifice being too small to admit the entrance of any 

 bird so large as a Cuckoo. Again the same paper of July loth, 1876, 

 notices the discovery of a young Cuckoo in a Wren's nest, situated on the 

 rafters of a shed, in such a position as to prevent the ingress of a bird any 

 larger than its foster mother. That the Cuckoo must occasionally lay its 

 egg first and then cai-rv- it in its bill, is, I think, partly proven by the fore- 

 going instances, even without the testimony of a traveller — Le Vaillaut ( ? ) 

 I think — who actually shot a South African Cuckoo in the act of 

 carrying its egg in its bill. Morris and other authors mention — on 

 apparently good authority — that the European Cuckoo (Cuculus caitorus 

 L.) also has been shot in the act of carrying its egg, and if so does not 

 this prove the possibility of the introduction of the egg by the bill into 

 nests difficult of access? Howbeit, the subject is one infinitely 

 interesting, and weU worthy of being worked out in the coming spnng by 

 the ornithological readers of the " Midland Naturalist." — A. M. B., 

 Bu'miugham. 



©IcaniiKis. 



Thk Wollaston Gold MED.Ui of the Geological Society has just been 

 awarded to Dr. Thomas Wright, F.R.S.E., F.G.S., &c., President of the 

 Cheltenham Natm-al Science Societjs (one of the societies forming the 

 Midland Union of Natural History Societies,) in recognition of his 

 detailed researches, continued for naany years, on the structure, classifi- 

 cation, and distribution of the Fossil EcJiinodermata, pubhshed by the 

 Palaeontogi'aphical Society, and for his other " Memoirs on the Jurassic 

 and Tei-tiary Strata of England," contributed to the Geological and other 

 kindred societies. 



Pkofessoe Feies, of the University of Upsala, the well-kno-^Ti 

 Swedish Botanist, died recently at the age of 83. 



The Eev. And hew Bloxam, M.A., Eector of Harborough Magna, died, 

 •we regret to have to record, on February 2nd, in his 77th year. He was 

 one of the best botanists Warwickshire has produced. In an early 

 number we pui-pose giving a memoir of his hfe and some account 

 of his labours as a Natm-alist. 



The late Andeew MrERAV, F.L.S., has, for some years past, been 

 known as a hard-working Entomologist, engaged in investigating the 

 injurj' done to field and garden crops by insects. The tiller of the soil 

 has not known how to meet his insect foes, and has even confounded 

 friends with foes by not knowing the metamorphic phases through which 

 insects pass. Connected officially with the Royal Horticirltural Society, 

 to whose scientific committee questions respecting damage to crops are 

 often referred, Mr. Murray was so impressed -wdth the general ignorance 

 of insect life that he made suggestions to the Pri\'y Council which led 

 to the formation of a collection of economic entomology, under the 

 du-ection of the Science an^ Art Department. This collection, now for 



