NOTES AND QUERIES. 185 



recollection heard it iu autumn or winter, the exceptional sound of which 

 has evoked a remark from Mr. New. If the sound was caused by tapping, 

 would it not be heard at all seasons? Again, it can be heard a considerable 

 distance ; but, if a tap, would it not be lost at thirty or forty yards ? — 

 Stanley Lewis (Wells, Somerset). 



[Seebohm, on the Petchora, relates a different appreciation of this 

 sound. He writes of the " Three-toed Woodpecker" (Picoides tridactylus) : 

 "On another occasion we heard the tapping sound of the Woodpecker's 

 beak ; a tap, then a slight pause, followed by a rapid succession of taps, 

 and, after a second slight pause, a final tap. I imitated the sound as well 

 as I could with a cartridge on the stock of my gun. The bird immediately 

 flew to a dead larch-trunk close to where we were standing, and perched, its 

 head thrown back, listening, some fifty feet from the ground. In this 

 position it fell to my companion's gun. It was a female " (' The Birds of 

 Siberia,' p. 110).— Ed.] 



Glossy Ibis in Durham. — An example of the Glossy Ibis {Plegadis 

 falcinellus) was shot by a farm-servant at Billingham Bottoms, near 

 Stockton-on-Tees, on the 25th of November last. I am informed by a 

 naturalist friend, who has seen the specimen, that it is "apparently an adult, 

 with the beautiful shot-green reflections on the back ; unfortunately the sex 

 was not noted." Of other records in the north-eastern counties, I have 

 three for Yorkshire, and one is mentioned by Hancock in Northumberland, 

 on the river Coquet (' Birds of Northumberland and Durham,' p. 13Uj. — 

 T. H. Nelson (The CMe, Redcar). 



Early Breeding of Wood-Pigeon and Snipe. — Two instances of early 

 breeding of birds in West Suffolk in an unusually cold and backward season 

 seem worth recording. On April 3rd a fully-fledged young Wood-Pigeon 

 fluttered down from a nest iu an ivy-covered tree in our grounds ; and on 

 April 16th my son found a clutch of four newly-hatched Snipe. The eggs 

 in this nest must have been laid in March. — Julian G. Tuck (Tostock 

 Ptectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Varieties of the Dunlin (Tringa alpina). — The remarks of Mr. 

 Backhouse under the above heading {ante, p. 91) caused me to measure 

 carefully the birds in my collection, as well as some kiudly lent me 

 by Mr. N. F. Ticehurst. Although these measurements, to a certain 

 extent, bear out Mr. Backhouse's remarks — viz, that the short-billed form is 

 rather different in its habits to the large-billed form, and is found in difierent 

 situations, or, if the same locality, under different conditions of weather, 

 &c. — yet, on the other hand, one can hardly take the view that there should 

 be two distinct species so closely allied, having — for, at all events, a great 

 portion of their range — a similar distribution. As far as one can judge, the 



