Ornithological Notes. 363 
paws, and proceeded to devour with apparently the greatest 
relish. Not contented with this, it was in the act of taking 
another from the nest, when the enjoyments of the feast were 
broken in upon by the hitherto unseen observer of the 
depredation. 
VI. Albino Variety of the Lepus timidus. Exhibited by John 
Alex. Smith, M.D. 
This white variety of the common hare was shot near 
Lauder about the end of January. The animal was large, 
and well fed. The eyes were carefully examined, and were 
pink or red, showing the usual deficiency of the dark pig- 
ment of the eye, which occurs in albinos. The ears, which 
were longer than the head, had no black colour on their 
tips ; and the upper part of the tail, instead of being black, 
as in the common and Alpine hares, was, like all the rest of 
the animal, pure white. 
VII. Ornithological Notes. By John Alexander Smith, M.D. 
(Specimens exhibited.) 
(1.) Turdus Morula (Penn.) Blackbird. — A pied variety 
of this bird was exhibited, the head and upper parts of the 
body being variegated with numerous pure white feathers. 
It was shot on the 3d of February near Dundas Castle, Lin- 
lithgowshire. 
(2.) Loxia curvirostra (Penn.) Common Crossbill. — A 
male and female, in fine plumage, were exhibited, killed on 
the 13th January, near Aberdeen. 
(3.) Picus Major (Penn.) Pied or Great Spotted Wood- 
pecker. — Adult male specimen, showing the crimson red 
occiput, was found in May 1861 lying dead in the shrubbery 
of T. Durham "Weir of Boghead, Esq., near Bathgate, Linlith- 
gowshire. The bird seems not to have been before observed 
in this county ; it is not included in the list of the birds of 
Linlithgowshire, by the Eev. John Duns, recently published 
in the Proceedings of the Eoyal Society. A young male, 
shot on the 4th of last December, at Kirkwall, Orkney, 
was also exhibited. It is one of our rare local residents, 
and is an accidental visitor or straggler in Orkney. An- 
other specimen was killed in Orkney in the month of August 
