216 BRITISH BIRDS. 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE RIGHT OVARY AND 

 ITS DUCT IN THE SPARROW-HAWK. 



With regard to Dr. C. B. Ticehurst's note on this subject 

 (supra, p. 188), I should like to say that so long ago as 1892 

 my attention was drawn to this matter by Mr. T. E. Gunn, 

 the taxidermist of Norwich, with whom I have had intimate 

 business relations for the past thirty years. He dissected 

 an immature female Sparrow-Hawk shot on January 9th, 

 1892, and found both ovaries equally developed. 



I do not know whether this was his first observation on 

 the sexual glands of tlie female Sparrow-Hawk, but since 

 then he has paid especial attention to these organs in the 

 Falconidce, and lias accumalated a mass of valuable notes 

 on the subject. I must have scores of letters from him, 

 wTitten during the last eighteen years bearing on the point 

 with regard to raptorial birds that came into his hands for 

 my collection or from other sources. 



On May 13th, 1903, Mr. Gunn read a paper before the 

 Science Gossip Club, an abstract of which is published in 

 their report. He there refers to the question of two persistent 

 ovaries in some detail, and mentions the Hen-Harrier, the 

 Sparrow-Hawk, and the Kestrel as species in which he found 

 both right and left ovaries present ; he also quotes the pas- 

 sage from Newton's Dictionary of Birds, referred to by Dr. 

 Ticehurst. 



It is said there is nothing new under the sun, and perhaps 

 someone before Mr. Gunn had been at work on the same 

 subject and published his findings ; unless this is so, it seems 

 to me the priority belongs to Mr. Gunn, and that he should 

 have the credit for tlie observation. 



My collection, unfortunately, I cannot get at, but I have 

 some of my note-books here, and I should like to give two 

 or three extracts bearing on this question of a persistent 

 right ovary. 



From the small series of skins in my possession, it is quite 

 impossible to be at all positive what the proportion of double 

 ovaries to single is in a state of nature. In the case of my 

 skins, about one in three had both ovaries developed, but 

 a larger number might easily show that ratio to be either 

 too high or too low, and I lay no stress on the accuracy of 

 the numerical proportion. Wliat the series does show is that, 

 while the persistence of the right ovary is quite common 

 in the case of the Sparrow-Hawk, it is certainly not the rule. 



