The Zoologist— May, 1867. 757 



Magpie wilh a Yellow Beak. — Allow me to remind tbe readers of the 'Zoologist' 

 that in California lliere is a magpie (Pica Nuttalli, Audubon) which corresponds 

 remarkably wilh the bird seen in Scotland by jour correspondent, Mr. Harvie Brown 

 (Zool. S. S. 706). Prof. Baird, in his ' Birds of North America ' (p. 578), says of it: 

 — " This species, in every appreciable respect, is precisely similar to the common 

 magpie (P. hudsonica, Bonaparte), with the exception of the bill and naked skin 

 around and behind the eye, which are bright yellow. Sometimes this is rendered 

 darker from the fact that the transparency of the horny covering of the bill allows 

 the bone to be seen through it. The size is rather smaller, but this may be the 

 result of its more southern locality. It is a very serious question, whether the bird is 

 anything more than a permanently yellow-billed variety of the common bird. It is 

 well known that in Psilorhinus morio, and other garruline birds, the bill may be either 

 yellow or black, almost in the same brood of young; and if magpies wilh these 

 differences were habitually associated throughout the continent, there would probably 

 be no hesitation in combining them. The restriction of the yellow-billed magpie to 

 the coast region of California, where it is unmixed wilh black-billed individuals, 

 except in the northern portion of the State, is an interesting fact." In plate xxvi. of 

 the 'Atlas' to the same work a coloured figure of the head of Pica Nuttalli is given, 

 together with outline sketches of the wing, tail and foot; but (in my copy at leasi) there 

 is no appearance of the bare yellow skin round the eye which is mentioned in the text. 

 If I am not mistaken the "golden" bill of this magpie used to be the subject of 

 various pleasantries, when California was first overrun by eager seekers of the precious 

 metal for which it has become so famous. — Alfred NewCon ; Magdalene College, Cam- 

 bridge, April 10, 1867. 



[Several other correspondents have communicated wilh me to the same purport, 

 leaving no doubt on my mind that the unknown visitor was Pica Nuttalli. — Edward 

 Newman."] 



Food of Great Spotted Woodpecker. — In dissecting the stomach of a male speci- 

 men of the great spotted woodpecker, killed on the 2nd of April, near Rendlesham,in 

 Suffolk, I found it contained as many as ten larvae of Cossus ligniperda of the first 

 year's growth, the skin of a larva of Zeuzera jEsculi, and four or five small white grubs, 

 apparently of some species of beetle. — T. E. Gunn. 



Early Nesting of the Kingfisher. — Mr. Hewitson's note on the breeding of the 

 kingfisher at Oatlands (Zool. S. S. 707) reminds me that there is a very interesting 

 letter on tbe same subject in the 'Field' of the 3rd of November, 1866, from 

 the pen of Mr. Rowley. There is more than a month's difference between the dates 

 mentioned by Mr. Rowley and Mr. Hewitson for the kingfisher commencing nidifica- 

 tion. Two or three pairs of kingfishers generally breed in our neighbourhood, but they 

 are not at all constant to their old nesting-places: I have hardly ever found them two 

 years running in the same locality. Tbe first kingfisher that I saw this spring was on 

 the 3rd of April. One pair bred last year under tbe roots of an alder tree on the bank 

 of a fish-pond, the hole only a few inches from the level of tbe water: another pair in 

 the bank of a small stream ; their nest seemed to be in perilous proximity to the water 

 in case of a flood, but the brood was reared in safety. I am happy to say lhat all the 

 small birds that visit or remain with us during the year are protected from shot and 

 snares, and their nests preserved. There is a standing order forbidding any gardener 

 or keeper, or any one employed about the place, to destroy a bird's nest : the result of 



