60 BRITISH BIRDS. 



feathers the tips are normally coloured steel-blue, a few are 

 entirely normal, but most are marked in a varying degree 

 with brown, some having a number of broad bars, others a 

 single bar, and others only a thin wavy hne of biown. Almost 

 all the feathers of the chin, throat, and cheeks have whitish- 

 buff bases and many are white-tipped. A number of the 

 feathers of the breast are irregularly marked with white and 

 brown, and many of the flank-feathers are vermiculated with 

 brown, as are the middle tail-feathers, upper tail-coverts, 

 and some of the feathers of the rump. The scapulars, 

 secondaries, and wing-coverts are also more strongly vermi- 

 culated with brown than is usual in the first winter-plumage. 



The brown markings resemble those in the plumage of the 

 female ; but in my opinion this bird is simply wanting in 

 black pigment, and this has caused the brown markings to 

 assert themselves in a varying degree in different feathers, 

 according to the amount of black pigment deposited. Mr. 

 W. P. Pycraft has very kindly examined the bird and is of 

 the same opinion, and has pointed out to me that indications 

 of barring are observable in certain Ughts in normally coloured 

 Blackcock's feathers. An examination of a large series of 

 Black-Game in the British Museum has convinced me that the 

 males frequently have a few bro^^ n-barred feathers, and I 

 have a bi^^d in m}^ own collection with several barred feathers 

 on the breast, but it seems a very rare occurrence for a bird 

 to be so freely marked with brown as the one now referred to. 



H. P. WiTHERBY. 



Mealy Redpolls in Scotland in the Autumn of 1910. — 

 Mr. W . Evans has contributed a very useful paper on this 

 subject to the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of 

 Edinburgh (Vol. XVIII. , pp. 196-203). Mr. Evans traces 

 the irruption from the north of Shetland to the south of 

 Scotland. Enormous numbers (not less than 2,000 caj)tured 

 birds were brought into Edinburgh alone) occurred at the 

 end of October and in November, but by the end of that month 

 the numbers fell off, and a single bird on January 18th, 1911, 

 is the latest of which the author has a definite record.* The 

 great majority were of the t^^pical form {Linota I. Imaria), 

 but a good many examples of the supposed large form {L. I. 

 holhoelli) were noted, and Mr. Evans shows that these birds 

 var}^ greatly in measurements of wing and bill, and we quite 

 agree with him in doubting the vahdity of Hollboll's Redpoll, 

 more especially as it appears to breed in the same area as the 

 typical bird (c/. Vol. IV., p. 292). 



*I may note that I saw one on the south Yorkshire coast on April 

 18th, 1911.— H.F.W. 



