274 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



is very rare. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of showing a 

 young friend a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the very act of 

 " jarring," and he was able to get a good view of the bird through 

 my field-glasses. The remarks of the late Professor Newton on this 

 subject (' Yarrell,' ed. IV, vol. ii, pp. 477, 478) are well worth 

 reading, and his most captious critic could hardly question their 

 accuracy. Certainly the noise is very loud for so small a bird, and 

 one day, when my daughter was riding past the old beech frequented 

 by the Woodpecker, it quite startled her horse. — Julian G. Tuck 

 (Tostock Eectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Yellow-skinned Variety of Jackdaw. — On June 22nd a friend 

 of mine shot and sent me a curious variety of the Jackdaw. 

 On taking off the skin ready for mounting it, I found this was 

 of a deep yellow colour from the base of the beak to the root 

 of the tail ; both inside and out were yellow, similar to the colour 

 of the skin of some domestic fowls when plucked ready for the 

 oven. The beak is a fine yellow from point to base, making the 

 bird look like a fine old cock Blackbird ; the legs and feet are also 

 pied black and yellow, similar to the legs and feet of the Pomatorhine 

 Skua. The eyelids are also edged with yellow. The centre of the 

 crown of the head is black, but all round the black is a fine broad 

 margin of pure white, including the feathers that cover the nostrils ; 

 this white extends to the bottom side of the eyelids. There is one 

 grey feather on each side of the wings and two or three on the rump. 

 I have six other varieties of the Jackdaw, but this one is very 

 different from the others. The bird under notice was killed close to 

 Mansfield. — William Daws (Mansfield, Notts.). 



Habits of the Cuckoo. — On May 29th last I found a nest of the 

 Tree-Pipit containing three eggs, also two eggs of the Cuckoo : the 

 Tree-Pipit's eggs were slightly incubated, whilst the Cuckoo's eggs 

 were fresh ; this proves that the Cuckoo's eggs were deposited after 

 the Tree-Pipit had commenced incubation. I once found a nest of 

 the Chaffinch in ivy on a wall, about 8 ft. from the ground, containing 

 only a Cuckoo's egg ; two days after, the egg was still alone in the 

 nest, and I took it ; one can, of course, surmise, as Mr. J. Steele 

 Elliott points out (' Zool.,' p. 232), that the Cuckoo located the nest 

 when it contained eggs of the Chaffinch and that on returning with her 

 egg she found the nest empty ; one can also surmise that the Cuckoo 

 deposited her egg in the empty nest without having seen eggs of the 

 foster-parent. The following would be a possible, and at the same 



