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BARROW'S GOLDENEYE AND THE COMMON 



GOLDENEYE. 



BY 



H. F. WITHERBY. 



At the meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club held 

 on November 13th, 1912, Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant 

 re-exhibited a 3'oimg male Goldcneye* which had been 

 shown to the members in Marcli, 1909, by Mr. F. Men- 

 teith Ogilvie, who with Mr. Grant then considered it 

 to be an example of Nyroca islandica {Bull. B.O.C., 

 XXIII., pp. 63-05). f Mr. Grant was now able to show 

 by the shape of the scapular-feathers that this bird was 

 really nothing more than a specimen of Nyroca c. clangula. 

 The difference in the shape of the scapulars of the Common 

 Goldeneye and Barrow's Goldeneye is a very interesting 

 one, and although ]\Ir. Grant Avas Mrong, as he points out 

 in the next number of the Bulletin (p. 29), in supposing 

 that he was the first to detect this difference, he was 

 nevertheless the first to bring it before British ornith- 

 ologists, for Dr. J. A. Jeffries's paper on the subject 

 appeared in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornitholoqical 

 Club, v., p. 189 (1880), and Avas quoted by Mr. Wilham 

 Brewster in the Auk, 1909, p. 161. 



Mr. Grant found that the black and wliite inner scapular- 

 feathers of. the males. " though much ahke in general 

 appearance, were structurally quite different in the two 

 species. In Barrow's Goldeneye the black lateral por- 

 tion was produced into a long process extending much 

 beyond the white portion, while in the Common Goldeneye 

 the white feather was of the usual shape, margined on 

 the side with black." 



As I find that the shape of these feathers in Barrow's 

 Goldeneye varies, and that they also differ in size from 

 those of the Common Goldeneye, I have had photographed 



•* Bull. B.O.C., XXXI., pp. 18 20. 



t We did not accept this identification and did not admit the bird to 

 tlie British hst in our Hand-List — see note on page 142 of that work. 



