148 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



ing P. v'lridanus, which I have usually, in Southern India, 

 found the most common species, except on the plateau of the 

 Nilgiri Hills, where from the end of December to the end of 

 March P. affinis, Tick., literally swarms about the fallow 

 land and adjoining scrub. I obtained nineteen specimens of 

 P. mcKjmrostr'is, Blyth, on the Travancore Hills, and could 

 easily have collected fifty specimens during the short time I 

 was there. 



•^ SiRS^ — I am interested and perplexed at the same time by 

 Mr, Ridgway's letter on the breeding- plumage of Podiceps 

 occideyitulis, Lawr. Mr. Ridgway states truly that the 

 breeding-plumage of P. occidentaUs is described in the 

 'Water-Birds of North America' (ii. p. 422). But that 

 description does not comprise the words printed in italics in 

 his letter to you — " from numerous specimens obtained on the 

 breeding-grounds , together with their eggs and young." I had 

 looked through the account in the 'Water-Birds' carefully. 

 I had noticed that Avhile the date of capture of the adult 

 winter specimen described is given, there is no such note on 

 the specimen described as being inbreeding-plumage. Prof. 

 Baird^ in his ' Birds/ p. 894, states that at that time its 

 breeding-plumage was unknown, and anticipates that in its 

 nuptial attire it will make a grand display. This anticipa- 

 tion, it seems^ has been disappointed. I believe, though I 

 may be in error, that Mr. Donald Gunn visited Shoal Lake 

 before Prof. Baird wrote. None of the dated specimens 

 given in the ' Survey ' were captured during the breeding- 

 season. My specimen was obtained in Vancouver's Island 

 by Mr. R. Brown, who worked then with Mr. Hepburn, and 

 Mr. Brown simply gives the name without any note in his 

 catalogue of Vancouver Island Birds (Ibis, 1862, p. 427). 

 Under the circumstances, and especially considering that the 

 publication in the 'Water-Birds' in 1881 seems to have 

 been the first published description of the breeding-plumage 

 of P. occidentaUs, albeit, as Mr. Ridgway states, "long known 

 to American ornithologists," I think it is to be regretted 

 that the authors of the ' W^ater-Birds ' did not more dis- 



