The Zoologist— March, 1870. 2049 



float to the settlements, where half never arrived, and half of those 

 which did were carried on by the current out to sea. Fools, in your 

 folly you have taught these valuable animals wisdom ! Thousands 

 which annually swam that lake now migrate by a route miles in the 

 interior. 



? Barren Ground Cariboo, R. Grcenlandicus. — Unless this species 

 of deer occurs in Newfoundland I am unable to account for small 

 herds of deer which are occasionally seen by the settlers, and dis- 

 tinguished by the name of " little black-legged deer." They are well 

 known to the settlers, but none have been killed at Cow Head for the 

 last five or six years. The last herd seen consisted of sixteen 

 individuals, of which four were killed, including one old stag, which 

 was said not to weigh so much as an ordinary doe of the woodland 

 cariboo, although very fat. These deer appeared to differ in one 

 respect from descriptions of R. Grcenlandicus, viz. in having the horns 

 smaller than the preceding species ; but then it is a well-known fact 

 that the horns of the same species of deer are much smaller iu 

 southern latitudes than they are in their high northern ranges. 

 I must, however, leave the identification of this species in Newfound- 

 land to some other zoologist. 



Henry Reeks. 



Thruxton, Andover. 



Bemarks on the Abnormal Phimages of the Goldjinch. 

 By H. Blake-Knox, Esq., J. P. 



1. Albinos and Whites. — The real albino, in which the plumage is 

 healthy, succulent and plumous, of a milk-white colour; pink eyes; 

 flesh-coloured bill and feet. This is natural, if we may use the term, 

 for an albino lives and dies an albino. With respect to albinos there 

 have been some rather stupid remarks made in the pages of the 

 'Zoologist:' that which has struck me as particularly so is de- 

 nouncing albinoisra as unpermanent — that is, that the bird v.'ill 

 become of the normal colour when it moults, for the simple reason 

 that we do not see a race of albinos of any given species of which 

 individual birds have been met with. I should think it very remark- 

 able if an albino in Britain lived to see Christmas-day, for in all 

 probability those who most denounce theoretically this defect, 

 for it is not a disease, would decidedly do so practically by an ounce 



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