MUSEUM NOTE, NO. VII.
15
another with three white leathers in the tail; another with one
white tail-feather. The one now in the Essex Museum was
certainly the prettiest I have seen. We kept it for several
months, with an ordinary hen blackbird, in a large wired-in
space round a tree, so that the birds could fly, and build in
the branches. They seemed thoroughly at home for months,
and enjoyed their food, which was thrown in every day. We
had great hopes of an interesting progeny, but the beautiful
bird died after a few days of depression. I took it up to Rowland
Ward the same day. He told me he had never seen a bird
so infested with insects, and that this was very probably the
cause of its death. I never saw another pied bird with such
symmetrical markings. As a rule they were more curious than
pretty.
After the death of this bird, no more pied blackbirds were
seen in the gardens for eighteen months or two years. Then,
about the end of October 1918, to my great satisfaction, three
more pied blackbirds appeared—one with a white tail, another
with white on its head, and the third with nondescript white
feathers unevenly distributed over its body. This revives the
hope that the race may be continued at least for the present.
The specimen presented by Miss Willmott is, generally
speaking, white, with black wings and tail; the breast and
flanks are closely mottled with black, and a few black feathers
appear on the crown and back. In each wing is a single white
quill. The beauty of the bird is chiefly due to the symmetrical
disposition of the markings, the right and left sides being almost
exactly alike.
New Essex Lichen.—Among the lichens collected at West Mersea
on the occasion of the Club's excursion on 20th September 1913 (see
Essex Nat., xvii., pp. 229-234) was a form of Lecanora hageni, Ach.,
found growing on oak sea-piles. This has since been determined by Miss
A. Lorrain Smith, F.L.S., as var. marina, Th. Fr., a variety of the species
which, although occurring on the Continent, had not previously been
recorded from Great Britain. A specimen has been deposited in the
British Museum herbarium, and is described in Miss Lorrain Smith's
recent Monograph of the British Lichens, part i., p. 278 (2nd edition, 1918).
—Percy Thompson, Loughton.