LETTERS. 351 



but that what he has mistaken for growing feathers are 

 merely the worn down stumps of the old ones. 



Speaking of the female Red Grouse Mr. Millais writes 

 (p. 38) :— 



" Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, who has made a close study of the species, 

 asserts that every female attains the whole summer dress by means of 

 a moult, but though this may be regular, I am not at all convinced that 

 it is the invariable rule." 



This is entirely a misrepresentation. I never said that the 

 whole of the summer-plumage was attained in this way. 

 What I really wrote was : "So far as I have been able to 

 ascertain from examining a large number of specimens, the 

 summer-feathers of the upperparts are always attained by 

 moult, and never by change of pattern." I particularly 

 mentioned that the feathers of the chest, sides and flanks are 

 assumed partly by moult and partly by change of pattern 

 (see Handbook to the Game Birds, I., pp. 31-34). 



It seems a pity that no coloured plate is given of the male 

 Red Grouse in his autumn-plumage ; three plates are devoted 

 to the different types in winter-plumage, but the former, 

 which is so interesting, so striking, and so little known to 

 sportsmen should surely have been figured. 



The general remarks on Pheasants (p. 75) betray an entire 

 ignorance of the various species. One instance is sufficient. 

 The Japanese Pheasant (Phasianus versicolor), we are told, 

 is a sub-species of the Common Pheasant (P. colchicus) ! It 

 would be difficult to imagine two more well-marked species, 

 one being confined to the islands of Japan, while the other is 

 found only in Western Trans-Caucasia and on the eastern and 

 south-eastern coasts of the Black Sea. 



Mr. Millais says that he is quite unable to accept all the 

 local forms of the Common Pheasant scattered over an immense 

 area and differing only in trifling particulars from one another, 

 but in most cases they inhabit areas quite apart. I do not 

 think from reading what he has written that he can have 

 read Mr. Buturlin's articles on the true Pheasants in the 

 " Ibis " (1904, pp. 377-414, and 1908, pp. 570-592). Mr. 

 Buturlin enumerates a large number of forms, species and 

 sub-species, but although many naturalists will agree that 

 all these are not distinctive enough to be separated, some, 

 such as P. alpherakyi, appear to be well characterised. It 

 is this species Mr. Millais figures under the name P. hagenbecki, 

 which is a very distinct species. The only example of 

 Hagenbeck's Pheasant in this country is the type-specimen 

 in the Tring Museum, and this Mr. Millais has never seen. 



