Fe a i 
THE ZooLoGist—APRIL, 1875. 4423 
and soft parts as usual: this bird was seen about the same place for two or 
three winters; at length, in the middle of February, some one shot it and 
brought it to me: as it was always seen about the same place, and only in 
winter,—I never heard of its being seen in the summer, though I made 
inquiries,—it seems probable that this was only an abnormal seasonal 
change. Another blackbird I have is of a uniform buff or fawn-colour; 
this bird was killed in Guernsey; I did not see it in the flesh, so cannot 
tell about the eyes; the legs are paler than is usual; I did not ascertain 
the sex, but it is of a perfectly uniform colour all over, as in the male, 
though the bill and legs are more the colour of those of the female. On 
mentioning this bird to a friend, he showed me a very similar’ variety, 
which he said he had in the flesh, and had taken it to a birdstuffer to set 
up, who afterwards told him that on skinning the bird he found beneath 
the skin a quantity of black fluid, which looks as if the colouring matter 
was present, but for some reason was not properly secreted through the 
feathers. I have a nearly similar variety of the hedgesparrow, but there is 
slightly more difference of colour, as the parts which are dull bluish in 
ordinary cases can be distinguished, and the primary quills are white, 
slightly margined with fawn-colour or buff on the outer web: the 
secondaries are rather broadly margined with the same on both webs, 
and the shafts of all are white; bill quite pale; eyes not known. Another 
hedgesparrow much mottled on both the upper and under surface with 
white; wings as usual; tail, two outer feathers white on one side, on the 
other side the second feather only white; the white feathers all have white 
shafts: this bird was killed in October, and was apparently a young bird in 
moult. I have two house martins which are quite white, and the bills are 
also white; they are both young birds, killed—I was told by the person 
who shot them—a few days after they left the nest: I did not see these 
birds till some years after they had been set up, so can say no more about 
them, and the same remark applies to a quite white house sparrow, the bill 
and legs in this latter instance being also quite white. Another house 
sparrow, a male, is a sort of smoky gray and white; the shafts of the quill 
and tail feathers white—whiter than the feathers; bill pale. Amongst 
rooks the pied and partially white varieties seem generally to be young 
birds; though this is not always the case, for amongst a party of rooks 
that daily frequent my lawn there was for some years one with many 
perfectly white feathers amongst the wing-coyerts and quills; apparently 
these same feathers when renewed after each moult came white again: 
whether this bird eventually assumed his proper plumage or came to grief 
I cannot say, but he has not shown his white feathers here for three or four 
years. Both the examples of pied rooks that I have are young birds: the 
first has a few white feathers on the head; many of the feathers at the 
base of the upper mandible are white; there are a few white feathers in the 
