NOTES. 269 



On a calm day, as many as eight or ten may be seen at 

 one moment amongst these islands. 



M. Bedford. 



[The colouring is given in Saunders' -'"Manual" (2nd ed., p. 

 722) : bill — nearly black, except the tip, which is whitish ; 

 irides — red (becoming paler after the autumn moult) ; legs and 

 toes — dark greenish- brown outside, yellower on the inner sur- 

 face. '• Yarrell" (4th ed., p. 131) : bill — black, both mandibles 

 of horn-coloured white at the tip ; irides — vermilion-red with a 

 narrow white ring ; legs and toes — dark greenish-brown outside, 

 varied with yellowish-green on the edges and inner surface. 

 Macgillivray (Vol. V., pp. 264-269), whose descriptions are 

 generally most careful, says that the bill — in the adult is 

 bluish-black with yellow tips, and in the young in first 

 winter, dark bluish-grey, with basal half of lower mandible 

 basal margins of the upper, and tips of both. yellow r ; feet — in 

 adult, dusky, tinged with grey externally, dull yellow inter- 

 nally and on both edges of the tarsus ; in young, bluish-grey 

 externally, tinged with greenish-yellow internally. 



Macgillivray's description of the colours of the bill and feet 

 of what he describes as the young bird in first winter agrees 

 so closely with that of the Duchess of Bedford that I would 

 suggest that all the birds Her Grace has noted were possibly 

 in first winter-plumage. — H.F.W.] 



