March, 1912. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



115 



A L'NIVEKS.AL ( .!.( )Mi: 1 KIC SI.lDl-: PH()T()-MICK( )GK.\PHIC .•\PP.\R.\TUS.— We are glad toyive in Figure 122 an 

 illustration of a carefully designed piece of apparatus whicli Mr. J. K. Barnard described before the Royal Microscopical 

 Society last November, and which he has now put on the market through Mr. Charles Baker. Extreme rigidity is obtained 

 and it can be used with a vertical as well as an horizontal camera and with almost any type of microscope, whether it 

 has a horseshoe or a tripod foot. .Ml the pieces of apparatus carried on the geometric slide are mounted so that they may be 

 centri-d a.-' ii' .'. !- '■■ t!'- ■'t-'i'- ivi- of the instrumont. and !iia\- be clamped (]n\v\\ when once their positifni h:is been di'tcrniined. 



Figure 122. 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



By Hugh Boyd \V.\tt. M.B.O.L". 



.•\NOTHEK NEW BRITISH BIRD— THE COLL.\RED 

 FLYCATCHER. — The addition of this species (Mnscicapa 

 colluris Bechst.i, to the British list falls to be chronicled 

 this month, two male birds having been shot in L'dimore 

 Lane, near Winchelsea. on 12th and 13th May, 1911, respec- 

 tively. This bird is similar in appearance to its near relative the 

 Pied Flycatcher, but has a conspicuous white collar, well 

 shown in the photograph given in British Birds for February 

 1912 (Vol. \', page 2381, from which the above particulars are 

 taken. Its summer range is in south-east Europe generally, 

 and it is very local elsewhere on the Continent. On passage 

 it is known in most parts of Europe, Persia, Asia Minor and 

 Palestine. It winters in Egypt. 



HYBRID GREENFINCH AND CHAFFINCH.— At the 

 cage-bird show of the London and Provincial Ornithological 

 Society held at the Crystal Palace. London this month 

 (Febniaryl, much interest was aroused by a hybrid bird 

 between a Greenfinch and a Chaffinch. Such a cross is stated 

 never to have been known before, and the particular bird 

 shown is described as small and slenderly built with brownish 

 plumage, tinted delicate green in certain lights. In captivity, 

 the Greenfinch will interbreed with the Canary, and in a wild 

 state with the Common Linnet. 



THE LAST OF THE PASSENGER-PIGEON.— There 

 now seems to be only a solitary bird (a female, about nine- 

 teen years old, belonging to the .Zoological Society of 

 Cincinnati) alive to represent the famous Passenger or Wild 

 Pigeon iEctopistcs inifiratorius), which, within the memory 

 of living man, bred in enormous numbers all over the forests 

 of North .America. Wilson, the American ornithologist, 

 estimated that a tlock seen by him consisted of more than two 

 thousand two hundred and thirty millions of birds, and 

 Professor Newton, in repeating this, says that the bird is 

 "still occasionally to be found plentifully in some parts of 

 Canada and the United States" \I)ictioiiary of Birds, 1893- 

 1896, page 696). Now, within twenty years, it has fallen to 

 the very verge of extinction, and the great researches, recently 

 made to find survivors in a wild state, have been quite 

 unsuccessful. It seems likely 'that the Passenger Pigeon will 

 soon rank with the Great Auk as an historical species only. 

 The last living examples in the Zoological Gardens. London, 

 were presented in 1SS3, one of w^hich survived till 1.SS9. In 



the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, there are 

 twenty-one specimens of this Pigeon. The species is on the 

 British list as a " doubtful " one, the five examples on record 

 being looked on as introductions, although Professor Newton 

 says that one shot in Fife in 1825 may have crossed the 

 Atlantic unassisted by man {Loc. cit. page 697). 



THE FATE OF THE CAROLINA PARAKEET — 

 Tills bird {Coiiiiriis carulinensis) seems destined to pass 

 away in like manner to the Passenger Pigeon. In North 

 America at the beginning of last century it ranged in sunnner as 

 far north as the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, but before 

 the end of the century its limits were curtailed to the Gulf 

 States. .At the present date, except for some eleven individual 

 birds in captivity in the United States, it has completely dis- 

 appeared, In Europe, about thirty years ago, it was freely 

 kept as a cage-bird, but it is improbable that there is now a 

 living example on the Continent. The last specimen in the 

 Zoological Gardens, London, died in 1902 and the last in the 

 Berlin Gardens in 1904. 



HIBERNATION AMONG BIRDS.— A reviewer in the 

 current number of " Knowleoge " (February, page 70), 

 speaks of the theory of the hibernation of swallows as " long 

 exploded." That it still exists in a nebulous way, and is 

 considered worthy of investigation in well-informed quarters, 

 may be seen by the statements made recently by Mr. C. W. 

 Nash, biologist to the Ontario Government. He writes: "I 

 have found evidence (of a sort) which leads me to believe 

 that the Purple Martin and Chimney Swift may at times 

 become partially dormant, and I have received recently from 

 an eye-witness an account of the cutting down of a hollow 

 tree near Peterborough (Canada) in the month of January 

 many years ago. This tree is said to have contained hun- 

 dreds of swallows in a dormant state, some of which were 

 revived. I have the names of other witnesses of this curious 

 incident, and am looking them up." This cannot be called 

 conclusive evidence, but the result of the enquiries to be 

 made will be awaited with curiosity. It may only be a coinci- 

 dence and not in any way to be looked on as a corroboration, 

 but the winter quarters of the Canadian Chimney Swift, one of 

 the birds named, are not known. Such a fact shows how 

 deficient we still are in complete knowledge of the localities 

 and regular movements of even common birds, whilst, as 

 regards the causes and reasons of migration, many of the 

 theories and conjectures put forward seem to be as inade- 

 quately supported by proof as is the theory of hibernation. 



