NOTES AND QUERIES. 107 
they take to the wing and go some twenty or thirty yards away ; 
whereupon she returns to drive off whoever may have arriyed to feed 
in her absence. One day in December last a young cock Starling 
turned on her and mauled her pretty severely, after which she 
sulked for over an hour a few yards away, and only attacked Black- 
birds and smaller birds for the rest of the day. Owing to several 
such lessons she now leaves Starlings severely alone, and is not so 
vicious towards Sparrows, Robins, and such small fry as formerly, 
but still spends several hours daily hustling Thrushes, and particularly 
Blackbirds, at every opportunity. She isa large bird, and is easily 
distinguished by her appearance and behaviour.—RicHarD HLMHIRST 
(Marine Biological Station, Millport). 
Varieties of Woodcock, Starling, &c., in South-west Hants —That 
Blackbirds with white patches in the plumage are no great rarity I 
am well aware, but this season I have heard from various localities 
of an unusual number of such specimens, several of which I have 
seen; the most peculiarly marked was one in which the head, neck, 
and breast were of an unspotted white, the rest of the plumage the 
usual uniform black; another in which the division of markings 
was somewhat similar, but the white was not so pure. My experi- 
ence points to the fact that Blackbirds show the “ white feather ” 
most frequently about the head, neck, or shoulders, but an entomo- 
logical friend told me that in his summer rambles, in a certain 
locality, he had many times seen a Blackbird with almost entire 
white wings and tail—in fact, his description was ‘‘ more white than 
black when flying” —and, what was most remarkable, he always saw 
it within one hundred yards of the bush where he had first detected 
it, and it was there only a few weeks ago. 
A Moorhen with a considerable amount of white about its plumage 
was killed in the autumn on the Avon, a few miles distant from the 
spot where my own specimen was shot a few years ago, as recorded 
(Zool. 1905, p. 144). 1 believe the specimen was preserved. I did 
not see it, but from description it had not so much white about it as 
my own. LHarly in December a very handsome Starling was shot, in 
which all the larger quill-feathers of both wings and tail were of a 
very pretty slate-blue colour edged with dark grey, which must have 
made it very conspicuous when flying with its comrades. It had 
been observed for the last two seasons, and its whole plumage was 
remarkably spotted and glossy. 
At the end of November a small and very dark Woodcock was 
shot in one of the forest-bogs. I suppose it belongs to the small 
