ATAVISM. 



It need not necessarih^ imph- that all birds varying slight!}^ 

 from the normal are the result of mixed union, because un- 

 doubted mongrels along the line of contact sometimes possess 

 similar characteristics, since Darwin says : " In a breed which 

 has not been crossed, but in which both parents have lost 

 some character wdiich their progenitor possessed, the tendency, 

 whether strong or weak, to produce the lost characters might, 

 for all that we can see to the contrary-, be transmitted for any 

 number of generations. When a character which has been lost 

 reappears, the most probable hj-pothesis is that the character 

 in question has been lying latent, and at last under unknown 

 favorable conditions, is developed." As previously mentioned, 

 there is an occasional specimen, more noticeable in the juvenile, 

 having the crown more or less tipped or washed with brownish 

 or with scarcely more than a su.spicion of ash on the throat, 

 colors belonging to the western species, just as truly as the 

 scarlet malar stripe or ruby colored shafts, although not as con- 

 spicuous. An anomalous specimen, .secured in Xew York 

 markets and described by Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., in the Ak/c, 

 Vol. XIV., p. 275, is an almost perfect intermediate between 

 ai/rafits and the Cuban Flicker C. chrysocaideiis, and would 

 doubtless be con.sidered a hybrid but for the fact that the 

 breeding ranges of the two .species do not overlap. To the 

 best of my knowledge this is the only specimen with spotted 

 rump taken on the North American continent. Possibly the 

 abnormal Gilded Flicker noted under the head of Hybridism 

 belongs properly to this .section. An old male showing the 

 effects of previous gunshot wounds in wing and mandible, 

 taken in DeKalb county, Georgia, Jan. 27, 'V)9, has a single 

 red fea.ther over the right eye. I shot an adult male near 

 Berwyn, Chester county, Penn'a, Oct. 3, '94, which has a 

 narrow border of .scarlet on the upper margin and end of the 

 black moustache ; a not at all remarkable condition, occurring 



