‘THe ZooLocist—SEPreMBER, 1876. 5U81 
just had two breast-bones of these isabelline larks for comparison with the 
common-coloured sort, it may be worth while (Mr. Mummery having 
founded his name on a difference of structure) to say that, as was to be 
expected, I can see no difference.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
Hooded Crows at Mamborough in Summer.—I mentioned (Zool. S. S. 
2728) having seen a pair at Flamborough on the 22nd of June. Mr. Bailey 
writes me that on the 13th of the present month (August) he was taking a 
stroll over the identical place, and saw six. He thinks they had bred on 
the cliff, and I have no doubt he is right.—Td. 
Magpie laying twice in the same Nest.—A gentleman who saw my note 
on the crows in the July number of the ‘ Zoologist’ (S. S. 5005), sends me 
the following information :—Early in 1875 a magpie built her nest in an 
ash tree in a hedgerow, which was robbed, but she soon laid seven more 
eggs; and this year, in an adjoining field, precisely the same incident was 
repeated.—C. Matthew Prior; The Avenue, Bedford. 
A productive Wryneck.—In the volume of the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1872 
(S. 8. 3227) I have given in some detail an account of a pair of wrynecks 
which laid forty-two eggs in one summer. From the friend who furnished 
me with the particulars I have now obtained the completion of these 
wrynecks’ history. He tells me that the next year (1873) they again laid 
forty-two eggs, making the extraordinary total of eighty-four eggs in two 
years, if they were, as he supposes, the same pair both years. This must 
be a matter of conjecture, but they nested in the same hole of the same 
stump, so that it seems likely that they may have been the identical birds. 
In 1874 only one egg was laid, and in 1875 none: a wryneck came to the 
hole, but it was occupied by a longtailed field mouse, and the bird, Iam 
informed, was disgusted and flew away. If the infatuated creature had had 
brains enough to remember the past, it might have been thankful, I should 
imagine, for the interposition. My friend has given me some of the eggs. 
Although it has long been well known among British collectors that the 
wryneck may be deluded into laying a large number of eggs, by abstracting 
a few ata time, and by never suffering her to sit, the above anecdote is, 
I think, unprecedented.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
History of a Young Kingfisher.—As the kingfisher is uncommon and 
unknown in some parts of the British Isles, and not often kept in confine- 
ment, the following account of a young one now in my possession, may be 
of interest. It was one of five brought to us in a basket, on the 31st of May, 
by a boy who had taken them from a nest in the bank of a small stream not 
more than three feet wide; they were fully fledged, and we think about 
three to four weeks old. We kept one and gave the others to Mr. Carter, 
the Superintendent of the Zoological Garden, in Phenix Park, Dublin, 
thinking that they would be more likely to thrive there than with us, but 
unfortunately the four all died after being there four days. The one we 
