118 



Dr. Gould also read extracts from a letter from Mr. 

 Stimpson, describing interviews which he had recently had, 

 in Australia, with distinguished naturalists, MacLeay and 

 Macgillivray among others; and a letter from Mr. Sylvanus 

 Hanley, of London, requesting an interchange of publica- 

 tions with the Society. Mr. Hanley's letter was referred to 

 the Publishing Committee. 



Dr. Cabot read a paper on a specimen of " Wild Hybrid 

 Duck,'^ propagated between the Clangida Americana, 

 (Whistler, or Golden-Eye,) and the Mergus cucullatus, 

 (Hooded Merganser,) of which the following is an ab- 

 stract : — 



This specimen was shot in the neighborhood of Scarborough, 

 Me., by Mr. Caleb Loring, Jr., in May last, and exhibited to the 

 Society in June, by Dr. Cabot. Mr. Loring, in his '• shooting 

 journal," says, the bird came in alone, passed his decoys, and 

 a small flock of Whistlers, and alighted alone, on a part of the 

 feeding-ground usually occupied by the Whistlers. In diving, 

 the duck went down perpendicularly, like the Whistler, and not 

 like the Mergus, which dives obliquely, and comes up at a dis- 

 tance from the place where it goes down. The supposed hybrid, 

 which was evidently approaching adult age, resembles the Mer- 

 gus most in the feathers and dermal parts, and the Clangula in 

 the hard parts. 



Dr. Cabot showed that the hybrid resembles the Mergus, in the 

 shape and directions of the serrations projecting above the edge 

 of the bill; in the terminal ungues on the lower and upper man- 

 dible; in the relative position and form of the nasal opening ; in 

 the relative length of the bill ; in the form of the head and crest; 

 and in the color of the plumage of the head. It resembles the 

 Clangula in having a curved, instead of a straight edge, to the 

 upper mandible ; in the prolongation of the serrations below the 

 edge of the lower mandible, and above the edge of the upper, 

 approaching the sifting apparatus of the Clangula, and differing 

 from the simple toothed form in the Mergus. It partakes about 

 equally of both parents, in the width of the bill and in that of 

 the tongue, though approaching rather more to the Clangula in 



