Tue ZooLocist—APRIL, 1876. 4869 
can give information on the subject, or a description of the hybrid, if such 
exists.— James Lumsden, jun.; Arden House, Alexandria, N. B., March 9, 
1876. 
African Birds.x—With reference to the list of Natal birds in your notice 
to correspondents in the ‘ Zoologist’ for March (S. 8. 4852), it may be 
desirable to add that the specimen of Laniarius quadricolor is immature: 
T had intended s0 to label it, but may perhaps have omitted it. Also for 
Campophaga read Campephaga—J. H. Gurney; Northrepps, Norwich, 
March 1, 1876. 
Birds near Rainworth—Green plovers have already come to their 
breeding haunts, and may be seen chasing one another over the fallow 
fields. Partridges have not all paired yet: this has been the worst season 
in Nottinghamshire for the last twenty years. Common wild ducks have 
been paired for the last fortnight. Already a pair of wagtails are about the 
thatch-stacks in my yard, where they build every year, looking for a place for 
their nest. We have had a great number of fieldfares and redwings—more 
than I ever remember—all over the county this winter, and I hear it is 
the same in Leicestershire: they come to roost in a fir cover near me by 
hundreds.—J. Whitaker ; Rainworth Lodge, near Mansfield, Feb. 22, 1876. 
Birds Pied about the Head.—One of your correspondents asks if it is not 
the experience of others that pied blackbirds are oftener pied about the 
head than any other part of the body. It certainly is mine, and it has 
‘struck me more or less that the same applies to the ring ouzel and several 
other birds, though I have no idea what the reason can be.—J. H. Gurney, 
jun.; Northrepps Hall, Norwich. 
Monstrosities.—I do not remember exactly where to refer to the passage, 
but a short time ago Mr. Gatcombe recorded an extraordinary monstrosity 
of a rock pipit, which he met with upon some rocks at Plymouth, and 
which, if I remember right, had certain supernumerary limbs over and above 
what are usually given to birds. I have now before me a somewhat similar 
monstrosity of a robin. It possesses three legs, and a most ghastly little 
object it is. The hind leg, which is the extra member, comes out of the 
abdomen: it is as long as the others, but dreadfully misshapen. For some 
years we had in our yard a tame drake with four legs; the hind pair hung 
down and were not made any use of; but I do not think it so remarkable 
in a tame bird. I once had a duckling which also possessed some super- 
numerary legs. It would be easy for me to cite several other instances 
from respectable works; but, for the most part, they only refer to domesti- 
cated birds, about which I apprehend the readers of the ‘ Zoologist’ are less 
interested than about wild ones. I will, however, cite one; Mr. Morton, in 
his ‘Natural History of Northamptonshire,’ tells his readers of ‘‘a mon- 
strous young quail found dead in the nest at Middleton Cheyney field, in 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. XI. ; ve 
