NOTES AND QUERIES. 33 



Mr. H. Holbeck, of Farnborough Hall, and I, early in August, saw both 

 pairs and four young ones ; two of these were nearly full grown, the others 

 were smaller, and still followed the old bird. Mr. Holbeck tells me he saw 

 three young ones there in July, 1880.— Oliver V. Aplin (Banbury, Oxon). 



Albino Common Bunting. — On the 4th September last I got a pure 

 white Common Bunting from the south of Lincolnshire. It was so 

 shattered by the shot that it was impossible to tell the sex. — J. Culling- 

 ford (University Museum, Durham). 



The Black-winged Peafowl. — Mr. Cecil Smith's valuable note on 

 Black-winged Pea-fowl (Zool. 1882, p. 462) leads me to think that the 

 readers of 'The Zoologist' may be interested in referring to some careful 

 remarks on this subject contained in a work entitled ' Notes by Sir Robert 

 Heron,' third edition (1852), p. 25. Many years ago I myself bred a perfect 

 black-winged Peacock from parents of the ordinary race, which, so far as 

 I know, had no black-wiuged ancestry. The excess of dark colouring in the 

 males of this race, and the invariable deficiency of dark colouring in 

 the females, is, I think, a noteworthy circumstance. — J. H. Gurney 

 (Northrepps Hall). 



Rustic Bunting near London. — Mr. Burton, of Wardour Street, was 

 good enough to send me a small Bunting, in the flesh, on November 20th 

 ult., which proved to be a young male of the Rustic, or Lesbian, Bunting, 

 Emberiza rustica, Pallas, of which species, I believe, there has been but 

 one recorded occurrence in this country. Mr. Burton informs me that 

 the present specimen was taken in the nets of a birdcatcher at Elstree 

 Reservoir on November 19th. — Lilford. 



[The first, and hitherto the only, recorded British example of this 

 Bunting was taken near Brighton, in October, 1867. It was reported by 

 the late Mr. Gould in ' The Ibis' for 1869, p. 128, and is figured in his 

 finely illustrated ' Birds of Great Britain.' The nidification of this bird 

 has been recently elucidated by Mr. Seebohm, who found it breeding in 

 Asiatic Siberia. See his recently publshed book, ' Siberia in Asia,' of which 

 a review is given in this number. — Ed.] 



Short-toed Lark near Cambridge.— I understand that a specimen of 

 the Short-toed Lark, Calandrella brachydactyla (Leisler), was taken by a 

 birdcatcher near Cambridge in the middle of November last, and submitted 

 for the inspection and opinion of Prof. Newton, who confirmed the surmise 

 as to its species and rarity in the British Islands. Only about half-a-dozen 

 examples of this bird have been recorded to have heen met with in England, 

 and, with one exception, these were all obtained in the southern counties of 

 Sussex, Hants, and Cornwall. — J. E. Harting. 



The Blue-tailed Bee-eater. — Mr. Hancock, in his ' Catalogue of the 

 Birds of Northumberland and Durham,' p. 28 (Newcastle, 1874), says a 



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