NOTES AND QUERIES. 147 



Great Spotted Woodpecker and Grey Shrike at Brighton.— A great 

 Spotted Woodpecker, Pious major, was picked up dead in a garden in this 

 town in tlie latter end of January, and a good female specimen of tlie 

 Great Grey Shrike, Lanius excubitor, was shot near here on March 5th. 

 — C. Bhazicnor (Brighton). 



Grey Shrike in Cumberland. — Perhaps it may interest some of the 

 readers of tlie 'Zoologist' to know that a fine specimen of the Grey 

 Shrike, Lanius excubitor, was obtained at Woodside, in county of Cumber- 

 land, by one of the keepers on January 28th, It is now in the hands of a 

 local taxidermist for preservation. — Edward Takdy (Penrith). 



[Mr. Macpherson, in his ' Birds of Cumberland,' p. 24, regards the 

 bird as a rare winter visitant to this county. He remarks that, although 

 it has chiefly been observed betweim October and March, examples have 

 been unexpectedly met with so lite as April 11th, April 14th, and 

 May 10th.— Ed.] 



The Note of the Hoopoe. — I should be glad to know at what season 

 of the year, or in what mouths, the note of the Hoopoe may be heard. 1 

 have seen hundreds of these birds out here during the cold weather ; iu 

 fact 1 should cull the Hoopoe one of our commonest cold-weather birds, 

 but I have never heard one of them utter a note. They are now (Feb. 12th) 

 leaving us. They are very tame and confidential, but so are most birds 

 out here, because the small boys of India are able to watch a bird without 

 feeling an irrresistible impulse to throw a stone at it. In this respect 

 they differ from English boys. — E. F. Bkchek, Capt., ll.A. (Ahmedabad, 

 India, F'eb. 12th). 



[In France we have heard the note of the Hoopoe repeatedly during the 

 latter end of May and beginning of June. It sounds like the words 

 " hoop-hoop," " hoop-hoop," and may be heard a very long way from where 

 the bird is sitting. — Ed.] 



Ray's Wagtail and Shore Lark in confinement. — Iu spite of pro* 

 phecies to the contrary, the Kay's Wagtail, Motacilla rail, which I reported 

 (' Zoologist,' 1884, p. 272) to have been kept iu confinement through the 

 winter and fed upon flies, lived three years in the possession of the Hon. 

 Lady Birkbeck, and then escaped. Mr. Pi. Otty, of Norwich, kept 

 another for nearly a year, but it died the second week in January, 18s7. 

 Both of these birds were tended with the greatest care, and were for a long 

 time in beautiful feather. On April 15th a Shore Lark, Otocorys alpestris, 

 which had lived through two winters and one summer in my father's posses- 

 sion, died, having for the second time begun to assume the rich tints of 

 the breeding plumage. I have another which has beeu in confinement 

 more than two years, and was netted on Yarmouth denes. It seems to do 

 very well on a diet of wild seeds, and always roosts on the floor of the cage. 

 — J. 11. Gukkev, jun. (Keswick Hall, Norwich;. 



