NOTES. 87 



AMERICAN WIGEON IN ANGLESEY. 

 On June 21st, 1910, and again on June 23rd I spent several 

 hours with Mr. J. Steele Elliott and the Rev. D. Edmondes 

 Owen watching an American Wigeon (Mareca americana) 

 on the lake at Presaddfed, near Holyhead. The bird usually 

 consorted with a bunch of Teal, and, whether in the company 

 of the other ducks or alone, was full of nervous activity, 

 constantly on the alert, and rose on the wing at the least 

 alarm. It was indeed only by careful stalking that we were 

 able to approach it, and everything in its appearance and 

 behaviour negatived the idea that it had escaped from cap- 

 tivity. Strong as it was on the wing, it had some difficulty 

 in keeping up with the Teal when the birds Mere in full flight, 

 and generally lagged, the last bird in the bunch. Aided by 

 binoculars and a telescope we were able on each day to get 

 near enough to the Wigeon to study its plumage in detail 

 and to identify it with certainty. An adult drake, it seemed 

 to be in full breeding-dress, and its intense black under tail- 

 coverts as yet showed no sign of the white feathering that 

 marks the assumption of the eclipse-plumage. The crown 

 was very pale grey — in some lights almost white, though not 

 the pure white of the patch in front of the black under tail- 

 coverts, a patch which was seen to extend from the belly 

 right over the rump when the bird raised its wings. The 

 sides of the head and the neck were hoary, and a broad ill- 

 defined green streak extended from the eye backwards and 

 then downwards. The bill was greyish-blue with a black 

 tip. The lower neck, breast, back and sides were vinaceous ; 

 the belly white ; the primaries and rectrices very dark grey, 

 appearing at a distance to be quite black. The pale shoulders 

 and the white on the wing-coverts, which formed a conspicuous 

 broad bar across the wing when the bird was in flight, were 

 concealed by the vinaceous feathers of the flanks when it was 

 at rest on the water. Chas. Oldha^i. 



WOOD-SANDPIPER AND RUFFS IN KENT IN JUNE. 



As it is unusual, perhaps, for Wood-Sandpij^ers {Totanus 

 glareola) and Ruffs {Machetes pugnax) to be present in the 

 south of England in June, it may be worth noting that when 

 watching birds in company with other ornithologists in west 

 Kent on June lltli, 1910, we saw in two places a Wood- 

 SandpijDer (it may possibly have been only one bird) and three 

 Ruffs and one Reeve. Two of the Ruffs were in full summer- 

 plumage and the third had an incomplete " frill." We also 

 saw a flock of five other bu'ds which we thought were Ruffs, 

 but they were too Avild to enable us to identify them with any 

 certainty. H. F. Witherby. 



