NOTES. 
173 
FOOTES. 
1. An Albino Wagtail.— It may be of interest to ornithologists 
to know that an albino of the Gray-headed Wagtail (Motacilla 
borealis) can be reported from Colombo. I saw the bird on the Galle 
Face on three occasions last month. The back was slightly dusky, 
and there was a'tinge of yellow on the breast, otherwise the plumage 
was quite white. 
Belvedere, Colombo, W. A. CAVE. 
February 6, 1910. 
2. The Gall of the Flying Squirrel. —It was only after a consider¬ 
able time that I was able to determine the author of a weird 
nocturnal cry that has attracted my attention at intervals ever 
since I have lived at Peradeniya. For a long time I supposed it to 
be produced by a night bird of some sort. But one moonlit night 
the cry was repeated for hours from a large tree .overshadowing 
my bungalow, and I was at last enabled to associate it definitely 
with the large brown Flying Squirrel ( Pteromys oral , Tickell). On 
this occasion the animal was evidently calling for its mate. The 
note was so monotonous and continued for such a long time that 
it “ got on my nerves,” and I endeavoured to frighten the beast 
away by bombarding it with Atones. But it absolutely refused 
to move, even after a revolver had been fired off several times in its 
direction, and I had to abandon the attempt. The next morning 
this—or another individual (possibly the desired mate)—was found 
entangled in a barbed wire fence at a little distance up the road 
and knocked on the head by a passing cooly. 
The note is a difficult one to put into words. It may be described 
as resembling something between the cry of a duck and that of a hen. 
It is a single, rather sharp note, resonant and metallic, with a 
sort of echo or subdued grunt. I recognized the same call one 
afternoon in the jungle at Mihintale. 
There has been a small colony, a dozen or more strong, of these 
squirrels located in the Royal Botanic Gardens for many years. It 
appears neither to increase nor to diminish to any appreciable extent. 
Individuals are occasionally picked up beneath the palm trees in a 
moribund condition, but I have never been able to discover the cause 
of their death. It is certainly not.of old age, for the dying animals 
were otherwise in good condition, with clean fur and well nourished. 
