2386 The Zoologist — November, 1870. 



delicately tinged with buff, and the backs and shoulders exhibit a pretty mixture of 

 gray and yellow-edged feathers. In one bird there is more of the summer rufous lint 

 than in the rest, the upper tail-coverts being still distinctly coloured as they are in 

 summer. Not long since I had occasion to notice how capricious moulting is with 

 birds: some individuals are well advanced, while others have scarcely commenced 

 their seasonal change. Out of the same flock, a short time since, I killed sanderlings 

 in complete winter dress and others in an intermediate autumn stage of plumage. 

 A great deal no doubt depends upon the constitution of individuals. It is with birds 

 as with other creatures. Just as we find some children more forward with their 

 teething than others, the most forward possessing more physical rigour and consequent 

 powers of development ; so among birds those which most rapidly pass through their 

 moults may be regarded as exhibiting thereby a superior physique to those that are 

 slower in their transition from one state of plumage to another.— iliwrray A. Mathew ; 

 Bishops Li/deard, October 22, 1870. 



Little Crake in Somersetshire. — One of these birds was shot last week on the river 

 near Taunton, by the son of one of the hotel-keepers of that town, who was out about 

 the river shooting moorhens, and amongst other things brought home a specimen of 

 the little crake, which, on account of its small size, he despised and threw away for 

 the cat; but the father luckily saw it, and thinking it was a bird I might like, rescued 

 it for me. The bird thus rescued is now in my collection, and a very fair specimen it 

 makes. As Yarrell does not mention the measurements of the legs and toes, perhaps 

 it may be worth while to add some of the measurements of those parts: the tarsus is 

 one inch two lines ; the middle toe, including lh« claw, 1 inch six lines ; the hind toe 

 nearly seven lines. — Cecil Smith ; October 13, 1870. 



Great Crested Grebe feeding its Adult Young. — A few days ago I was sitting on 

 the bank of a large piece of water where these birds breed freely and are not 

 uncommon, when my attention was specially attracted to an old bird which was 

 feeding, at some distance from the rest, in company with a young and perfectly full- 

 fledged bird of the year: it suddenly uttered for several seconds a peculiar whistling 

 sound, and up<m looking more closely at it I observed that it had caught a large fish 

 and was holding it in its bill. The young bird, as soon as it heard the whistling, 

 swam hastily up to its parent, who put the fish into its opened bill, from whence it was 

 very speedily conveyed into the crop. — H. Ilarpur Crewe; The Rectory, Drayton- 

 Beauchamp, Tring, September 26, 1870. 



Cormorant inland. — In the 'Zoologist' for 1869 (S. S. 1921) I recorded the 

 occurrence of a cormorant at Kiinberley. I have now to mention that a specimen, 

 an immature male, has also been captured this season, on the lake in the same locality, 

 on the 9th of September. It would have been allowed to remain unmolested but that 

 it cleared the fish out of the lake so rapidly. — T. E. Gunn. 



Pied Head in the Common Skua. — In the ' Zoologist' (.S. S. 992) there is a note on 

 the common skua (Lestris catarractes), the head of which was "mottled with small 

 patches of white feathers." I find that to have some trace of this pied appearance is 

 the rule rather than the exception. I have noticed it in the living examples in the 

 Z(io1<)gic:il Gardens, which were sent from the Cape by Mr. Layard (and which are 

 now regarded as identical with the British species) ; but I never saw it more strongly 

 marked than in a specimen which I selected this morning, in Leadeuhall Market, 

 from among some pomarine skuas. — J. II. Gurncy,jun.; October 19, 1870. 



