174 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



have brought the specimens for the inspection of the Society 

 along with the down.* 



* Mr R. Gray (Birds of West of Scotland, p. 368) notices the occurrence of 

 a pair of this species on the Loch of Slains in Aberdeenshire, on 4th May 1866, 

 as recorded by Mr Angus, and of the death of probably the same pair three 

 days afterwards, as they flew up the river Ythan. N.B. — Had I been guilty of 

 this death, I should not have bruited it. — No doubt these birds would have 

 reared a brood, had they not been destroyed ; and it does seem unnecessary now- 

 a-days to kill the parents of the nest, even in order to identify the eggs, if, in- 

 stead, down is procurable. Specimens of the pintail have been shot, as Mr Gray 

 informs us, in "almost every county north of the Tweed ; " but in the Hebrides 

 it appears to be of rare occurrence {Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc, 1879-80, p. 361). 



Two were seen in Tyree by Mr J. Henderson in the winter of 1878-79 

 {Proc. N. H. Soc, Glasg., 30th Sept. 1879) ; and Mr R. Gray exhibited one, 

 which was obtained in Uist in 1879, to this society. I am not, however, 

 aware of any positive record of its having bred in Scotland, previous to the 

 present one.* 



Since writing out the above, and after my first and second comparison of 

 the downs and feathers, I wrote to Professor Newton of Cambridge, telling 

 him of the discovery. In reply he says : — "A pintail's nest on Hysgeir is a 

 very curious circumstance — for the bird, so far as I know, is not at all of a 

 marine character," and he adds: — "I confess to wishing that the evidence 

 lay in something more firm than down — about which I have often had doubt. " 

 He adds also that : — "I believe pintail's eggs are, as a rule, indistinguishable 

 from those of the long-tailed duck ; and I should never be surprised at a nest 

 of the latter being found anywhere among the Scottish Islands." 



After replying that I felt great confidence in the authenticity of my pintail's 

 eggs, I made a third careful comparison, the results of which put beyond a 

 doubt in my mind the correctness of my identification, and I beg to hand 

 round a volume of Captain Feilden's and my egg book for inspection. In it 

 will be seen : — {a) a spray of down from a Russian nest, taken in 1875 

 by myself ; {&) a spray of down taken from the Hysgeir nest ; (c) a flunk 

 feather from the Hysgeir nest ; {d) a flank feather plucked from a pintail 

 duck in our collection ; (e) a flank feather taken from the Russian nest ; 

 and lastly, as negative evidence, a much smaller spray of down, taken 

 from a nest of the long-tailed duck in Russia. At the same time I ought 

 to let you know that a full comparison which I have also made of the downs 

 in bulk, shows the difference even more distinctly. I would here refer you 

 to remarks on the subject of the diff'erences between the downs of various 

 species of duck, by Mr Seebohm and myself, in the Ibis for 1876, p. 436, a 

 copy of which volume I have also brought for your inspection, and beg leave 

 to hand round. It will be seen that we have placed the downs of the pintail 

 and the long-tailed duck in two totally difl"erent classes — A and D — the former 

 belonging to the ** White- or ligJU-tipped cZass, " the latter to the "small dark, 

 witliout-white-tips" class, and it will further be noted that " the downs were 

 examined in bulk in a clear but not too bright light, and in the absence of 

 direct rays of sun-light" {op. cit., p. 436). 



* It has since bred in Sutherland in 18S2. 



