The Zoologist— Junr, 1870. 2183 



which has given rise to the controversy, was slightly detractory in regard to the 

 pleasure afforded me in presenting the specimen for the benefit of Science. — 

 J. Matthew Jones ; Institute of Natural Science, Halifax, N.S., May 3, 1870. 



PS. — Mr. Eeeks, at page 1856 of the ' Zoologist' for last October, in conomenting 

 upon the Bishop of Newfoundland's letter to me concerning the position the auk 

 mummies were found in on Funk Island, observes, " If the specimens were really 

 embalmed or entombed in the ice it is right to infer that they were not originally 

 Funk Island birds, but that they died in high northern regions, and there became 

 entombed in ice which eventually drifted on to Funk Island." Mr. Reeks entirely 

 mistakes his lordship's meaning if he thinks it is intended to convey the idea that the 

 ice alluded to was berg ice from the north. It was original Funk Island ice, or rather 

 guano ice, if I may use the term, which had formed in a cleft facing the north, on 

 which the sun never shone, in which the birds were found ; and if he thinks that it is 

 impossible for ice to remain unmelted in such a position through the short summer of 

 that northern latitude, I think his astonishment will be great indeed when I state, on 

 excellent authority, that there are particular spots known in this province of Nova 

 Scolia, which is still further south, where ice remains in ils natural unmelted state 

 from one winter to another. So the term "ice which never melts" was I think 

 italicised prematurely. I am in hopes that shortly a visit will be made to the island 

 in order to set at rest the question as to the existence of oiher specimens. As I have 

 only just returned from a trip to the eastern part of this province, and am in the 

 midst of preparations for a start to-morrow through the forest to the westward, I have 

 no time to allude to other portions of Mr. Reeks' "Newfoundland Noies" which 

 I think require notice.—/. M. J. 



Plumage of the Adult Male Merganser. — I have just read Mr. Rodd's note on the 

 plumage of this bird (S. S. 2141). I have frequently met the merganser in full (so 

 called) breeding plumage in winter; old males are always so in January, as are 

 goosanders, shags, cormorants, ducks, &c. I have found guillemots and redthroated 

 divers assuming "breeding" dress in December. Having found both these birds 

 changing from breeding to winter dress in November, I cannot understand the change 

 vice versd within six or eight weeks. It is a difficult subject to unravel, but I think 

 birds killed in winter with full breeding dress must be very old birds that have not 

 moulted in autumn, or, as Air. Rodd proposes, permanently retain this plumage. 

 That adult guillemots change from September to November from the brown to the 

 white head I have ample proof, having killed the young in down swimming with the 

 moulting female when not another bird was in sight. But birds that commence 

 assuming the apparent breeding dress in December I am inclined to think young birds 

 for the first time attaining this dress (I do not think they would breed the following 

 spring), for this reason, that the " autumn" moult, or a large part of it, takes place in 

 the summer some months earlier than the real autumn moult of the adult, and for 

 this reason the "spring" moult commences earlier; that is, in December to January. 

 These remarks do not apply to the mergansers, which I believe retain the " breeding" 

 dress when once assumed, — that the crests of these and allied birds are a spring and 

 summer appendage I have no doubt, — falling or wearing off during the breeding 

 season, and then not assumed till late in winter or early in spring. Like many land 

 birds, as the fringes of the feathers abrade, the plumage becomes clearer, and in 

 spring a more lusty pigment is driven through the plumage, as it is into the eyes, bill 



