70 Proceedings of the Bayed Physieal Society. 



and feet also white, and the eyes reddish. Patches of white 

 are also sometimes seen iu individuals " (1837). And 

 Howard Saunders, in the "Illustrated INIanual of British 

 Eirds," now being issued, remarks : — " White and piebald 

 varieties are not uncommon" (1888). Many more illus- 

 trative passages might be quoted, but the foregoing are 

 sufficient to show that white and pied varieties are not 

 uncommon ; that brown varieties are rare, and that no 

 attempt is made to account for the variation. Macgillivray 

 seems to trace the milk-white forms to Albinoism. If so, we 

 would have a physiological variant, and some light thereby 

 from other departments shed on variations of this sort. But 

 while there may be rare instances of this, there are many 

 facts that tell against it. For example, starlings, black- 

 birds, and sparrows have been observed increasing whiter 

 and whiter season after season, as carefully guarded as 

 possible, and captured only when the varying process was 

 complete, or nearly so, that were not Albinos. 



In conclusion, one object I had in view in submitting 

 these somewhat common-place notes to the Society was to 

 put on record some facts in connection with white variation 

 not unworthy of notice. The last weeks of 1860, and the 

 opening weeks of 1861, were marked by exceptionally 

 severe weather. Deep snow covered the ground, and the 

 frost was very keen and long continued. The birds especi- 

 ally had a bad time of it, — a worse time even than they 

 had in December 1878 and January 1879, when the 

 mortality was so great among certain species, that the 

 occurrence of like weather in the same months the year 

 following would have been the disappearance of some forms, 

 thrushes for example, from wide districts. ]N"ow, in the 

 late spring and early summer the part of Linlithgowshire — 

 Torphichen — in which I then resided, a most unusual 

 amount of variation, both among birds and mammals, came 

 under my notice. Blackbirds, with white patches, or even 

 single white feathers ; one sparrow, with white hind head ; 

 another with white tail ; another with pied wings ; a chaf- 

 finch, with forehead and greater wing coverts white instead 

 of black ; and, on a general but fair estimate, about twenty 



