298 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Cuckoo DENUDED or Fratruers.—In Mr. Kermode’s note (p. 257) on 
the Cuckoo found in the Isle of Man, the extent to which that bird was 
denuded of feathers is not recorded. I have frequently noticed that when a 
Cuckoo is shot and falls from the height of a few feet it loses nearly all the 
feathers from the back and upper tail-coverts, and sometimes also from the 
breast and sides. These feathers are very stiff and but slightly fixed in a 
very thin papery skin, so that a sudden blow or shock separates them 
easily from the skin. I have seen this happen even when the bird fell on 
a grassy meadow, and can imagine that if a Cuckoo was knocked down 
from a considerable height, either by shot or by a blow from a hawk, and 
fell on hard ground or on a hard peat-stack (as in the Isle of Man) the bird 
might be found much more denuded than those which I have seen. This 
easy separation of feathers from the Cuckoo makes it a very difficult bird to 
stuff, or even to make into a good skin. The Nightjar is much the same 
in this respect, but is too light a weight in proportion to its size to lose so 
many feathers on falling. Ring Doves on falling from a great height are 
apt to lose many feathers from the upper tail-coverts and flanks; but I have 
noticed this loss to a much greater extent and more invariably in the 
Cuckoo than in any other bird.—F rank Noreare (Sparham, Norwich). 
[See Willughby’s ‘ Ornithology,’ p. 98.—Eb.] 
Brrps’ Fraruers cominG orr 1x Wrnter.—Mr. Philip M. C. Kermode 
refers to Cuckoos denuded of feathers (p. 257), and asks ‘ Has the like been 
observed of any other bird?” The only instance I can recall was one 
which Mr. Seebohm and I met with. On March 24th, 1875 (not the 14th, 
as stated in ‘ Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist.,’ July, 1877, p. 124), I shot a 
Hawfinch, Coccothraustes vulgaris, in the German Cemetery at Archangel. 
Its feathers were so loose that they came off at a touch, and we could not 
preserve the specimen, which was unfortunate, as it was the only one 
ever recorded as occurring at Archangel. From my journal I find that no 
disease was apparent externally or on dissection, The bird had been 
feeding on rye or some grain picked up at the bottom of the windmills.— 
J. A. Harvis Brown (Dunipace House, Larbert, N.B.) 
Hoorok near Bastncsroxe.—On the morning of May 12th I was 
called to the window to look at an “odd bird,” which was feeding on the 
tectory lawn, and which I recognised as the Hoopoe, Upupa epops, whose 
barred plumage, orange breast, and orange crest, which it was raising, in alarm 
or defiance perhaps, at some Thrushes feeding at a respectful distance from it, 
made it a splendid object in the sunshine. My exclamations of astonishment 
and delight proved unfortunately too much for our strange visitor, who, to our — 
great disappointment took flight, but only, as it turned out, to the precincts 
of the Manor House opposite, which it haunted for three days. During 
this time we were able, with the aid of a field-glass, to see a good deal of 
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