NOTES AND QUERIES. 351 



about over the city of Edinburgh, and uttering their scream, as is their 

 custom, on the evening of August 23rd last. In former years, and 

 much farther south — Kirkcudbrightshire — I found the 20th August 

 a late date for their stay. On this date, in 1894, I saw a group of 

 them on their southward migration. It is true I have also seen a 

 solitary straggler in the first days of September, but this is of course 

 abnormal, When on a holiday in the early summer of this year I 

 heard the Cuckoo's call — practically unbroken — on the opening morn- 

 ing of July. I do not know whether this is in the nature of a record 

 or not, but I never have heard it after the month of June in former 

 years. A certain well-known writer of fiction (Sir Conan Doyle, in 

 ' Rodney Stone ') would lead his readers to think that it calls in 

 September. I have not heard it so late myself! — J. W. Payne (1, 

 Meadow Place, Edinburgh). 



The Hobby in South Warwickshire. — A friend of mine in South 

 Warwickshire, not far over the Oxfordshire border, sent me a fine adult 

 Hobby (Falco subbuteo) in the flesh on August 15th last, and wrote: — 

 " The keeper shot this in the wood; they build in fir-trees near the 

 pond ; there are more there now." Doubtless this remark refers to the 

 other old bird and the young ones reared this year. The bird sent 

 proved to be a female, and measured 13-2 in. in total length ; wing, 

 10-25 in. Legs and feet bright golden- or deep chrome-yellow. Claws 

 blackish horn. Bill horn-colour, paler and greenish at the base of 

 the upper mandible. Cere greenish yellow. Eyelids yellow. The 

 stomach contained fragments of small beetles. — 0. V. Aplin (Blox- 

 ham, Oxon). 



Albino Moorhens. — Pure albinism is, I believe, very rare in the 

 Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) ; the only departures from the normal 

 with which I have hitherto met are pied varieties showing more or less 

 white, and individuals the plumage of which presented a silky or hair- 

 like appearance. Of the latter curious variety there are good descrip- 

 tions in the ' Birds of Norfolk,' ii. p. 422, and by Mr. Gurney in the 

 ' Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society,' iii. 

 p. 581 (with coloured figure). I was pleased therefore to have an 

 opportunity of examining two fully-grown young ones in beautiful 

 plumage in the shop of Mr. Lowne, of Great Yarmouth, to whom they 

 were sent to be preserved by Mr. Walter J. Corbett, of Rollesby Hall, 

 near that town. They were both females, and were killed at Rollesby 

 about the 1st and 3rd August last. The plumage in each case is 

 pure white, the legs and bills pale chrome-yellow, and the irides pink, 



