358 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



patch on the wings. The bill is also white. The eyes were of the usual 

 colour. But the most interesting feature is that where the feathers are 

 usually black in the tail, in this specimen a blue pattern is to be seen, 

 similar to that on the wings. I have seen and handled many Jays, but I 

 never remember seeing one in which there was any remarkable variation of 

 plumage, the Coroidm, as a rule, being less liable to variation, in my expe- 

 rience than many other families of birds. — Henuy Laver (Colchester). 



A White Magpie.— On March 2nd I had the pleasure of examining a 

 white Magpie in the possession of Mr. Skinner, of River Street, N. Its 

 owner courteously showed me the bird, and informed me that it was taken 

 from the nest near Sittingbournc, Kent, in 1882. It was not as white as 

 the albino Jay in the Western Aviary of the Zoological Society, but was 

 almost entirely white, the forehead and both primaries and secondaries, 

 however, being tinged with black. The beak and irides were normal: the 

 legs flesh-colouivd. — H. A. Maopheabon (Carlisle). 



Ivory Gull on the Lincolnshire Coast. — On March 89th, 30th, and 

 31sl I saw an Ivory Gull \l'. ebumea) between Great Grimsby and Clee- 



thorpes. It was easily distinguished from other large Gulls when on the 

 wing by its slow and steady flight (resembling that of a Heron rather than 

 a Gull), and the white colour of the plumage, which was then very con- 

 spicuous. When picking up food on the shore its action was peculiar; it 

 held its body in a horizontal position and dropped its head and neck, so 

 that when the beak touched the ground the head and neck formed a right 

 angle with the body. — T. Fisher (Erfurt Lodge, Greenwich). 



Shore-birds on the Humber Flats in May. — During the afternoon of 

 May 16th, 1 saw a (lock of a dozen Grey Plover on the muds, all appa- 

 rently in breeding plumage ; seven Whimbrel in one flock, and several 

 others calling. I also watched, with my telescope, two Oyster-catchers 

 feeding within fifty yards of the embankment. I mention this especially, 

 as it is rarely I have had an opportunity of seeing these pretty birds at so 

 short a distance. They were very busily employed searching the shallow 

 gutters which everywhere intersect the ooze, boring like Godwits with their 

 bright orange beaks, and appeared to be feeling for sandworms. When suc- 

 cessful in touching their prey they displayed the greatest eagerness to secure 

 it, plunging their beaks up to the forehead in mud and water, and wriggling 

 their head and neck. They rose at last with a shrill " peep-peep," flying 

 directly from me to the tide-edge, the pure unsullied white of the lower 

 back, tail-coverts and tail, and expanded wings, having exactly the appear- 

 ance of an open fan, the broad end backwards, of pure white colour, edged 

 with black. Common as the Oystercatcher is at some seasons on the sandy 

 flats of our coast, and at Spurn, it is very rarely indeed that I have seen 

 them so far within the Humber. — John Coudeaux (Great Cotes, Ulceby). 



