NOTES AND QUEEIES. 429 



which was not to be distinguished from that of a Peacock. It had been 

 taken from a bird reared at the Castle-farm of Tilquhillie, near Banchory, 

 N.B., and which had died at the estimated age of thirty years. For some 

 years previously it had ceased to lay eggs, and had gradually been assuming 

 the plumage of the male — a phenomenon usually correlated with disease of 

 the ovaries. Such instances have been often noticed in the case of fowls, 

 pheasants, and other birds, but never before in the case of the Peafowl. 



Food of the Jay. — The following is the diet supplied to two tame 

 Jays, showing what omnivorous birds Jays are : — The first one would eat 

 worms, grapes, and acorns with equal avidity ; but its beak could not pierce 

 the acorn's husk until it had been partly pared off, then holding it with its 

 foot the bird would rapidly pull it to pieces with its strong beak. In the 

 same way, if a dead Sparrow is given to a Jay, it will stand on one part of 

 it while with its beak it tugs at another, after the manner of a hawk. My 

 Jay would eat the orange berries of the Solanum, if hungry, but did not 

 care in the least for yew and privet berries. Jay No. 2 devoured peas by 

 making a hole in the side of the pod, and after it had got them all out it 

 would amuse itself by pulling the pod to pieces, no doubt to look for more. 

 Sparrows' eggs dropped into the cage were adroitly caught before they 

 reached the bottom, and a mouse or a shrew was very acceptable. Being 

 put into the same cage as a Carrier Pigeon and a Turtle Dove, in spite of 

 a disabled wing, and though the cage was nine feet long, the Jay soon 

 despatched the latter by pecking its back. — J. H. Gurney (Keswick, 

 Norwich). 



Spotted Redshank in Summer Plumage in November.— On 8th 

 November there were eight Spotted Redshanks, Totanusfuscus, in LeaJen- 

 hall Market ; one of them, a richly mottled old bird, retaining nearly half 

 its breeding-dress, which at so late a date was rather remarkable. — J. H. 

 Gurney (Keswick, Norwich). 



Fork-tailed Petrel near Macclesfield. — The occurrence of a Fork- 

 tailed Petred so far inland as Macclesfield may perhaps interest readers of 

 1 The Zoologist.' The bird was picked up on October 11th, two days after 

 the stranding of the ' Sirene ' in a gale at Blackpool, and was sent to me as 

 a curiosity. Some of the feathers on the forehead are tipped with white. 

 Does this indicate a young bird ? I can find no mention of it in any descrip- 

 tion of the plumage that I have seen. — Newman Neave (Macclesfield). 



Breeding of the Cut-throat, or Ribbon Finch.— Last August a pair 

 of Cut-throat Finches, Amadina fasciata, in one of my large breeding- 

 cages, went to nest, hatched their eggs, five in number, and fed the young 

 regularly upon Abraham's " Insectivorous Birds'-food," until they were 

 about half-grown, when one bird was carried out of the nest dead. The 



