4798 Tue ZooLoGisTt—FEBRuARY, 1876. 
crimson feathers on the head and under the tail the bird is perfectly white. 
The following year he likewise shot, near the same locality, a specimen 
which has the crimson feathers on the back of the head instead of on the 
crown, and the top half of the wings and tail-feathers brown instead of 
black.—Samuel James Capper ; Huyton Park, Huyton. 
Migration of the Swallow and Martin.—In the January number of the 
‘ Zoologist’ (S. S. 4757) I am charged by Mr. S. Clogg with having 
“mistaken, misunderstood and misquoted” his remarks, and “committed— 
to put it mildly—the great error of omitting portions of a sentence in one 
case, and adding to another, so as to make the sentences suitable” to my 
“views.” This is a heavy, not to say serious, indictment; and there is more 
of it, but the charges not so weighty. Well, then, though bearing in mind 
the wholesome proverb, ‘ qui s’excuse s’accuse,” I must confess that I did 
give him credit for the first line—the only important one, too—and com- 
mitted the great error of adding it to his. As to my having misunderstood 
him by supposing the remarks referred to “‘ general migration,” the following 
quotation is the best answer, proving, too, that the ‘“ wind-bound theory” 
was not mine :—‘ A person told me that he had heard that swallows would 
not start on their migration whilst the wind was at all from an easterly 
direction; * * * the above facts would appear in some measure to 
corroborate the idea. * * * All this time*the wind had been in the 
east, with the exception of a few hours.” My theory is that the time of 
migration depends, not on the wind—whether east or north—but the tem- 
perature. As to the charge of making sentences suit my views, I must 
decline noticing it. In taking leave of this somewhat vexed question, 
I have only to remark that having for nearly forty years paid particular 
attention tu the migratory habits of the Hirundines, I thought to give a 
brother ornithologist the benefit of it—helping him out of a ‘ muddle”— 
when, lo! an attempt is made to drag me into one.— Henry Hadfield ; 
January 6, 1876. 
[Both Captain Hadfield and Mr. Clogg are far too good men to waste 
their own time and their readers’ time in little differences of this kind: let 
me take on myself to apologise to each of them for expressions hastily used, 
and I believe elicited in the first instance by an inadvertence of my own.— 
Edward Newman.) 
Stock Dove in Ireland.—Mr. Thomas Darragh, of the Belfast Museum, 
reports to me the occurrence, in the County of Down, near Belfast, of two 
specimens of the stock dove (Columba @nas). He found them for sale at a 
poulterer’s on the 8th of October, 1875. They had been shot and sold by 
a person on that day. One of the birds was too much injured to be 
preserved; the other, a male,—which I have to-day examined,—is in good 
plumage. I am not aware that this southern species has been before 
recognised in Ireland.—Clermont ; Ravensdale Park, Newry, Dec. 18, 1875. 
