THe ZooLocist—Aueust, 1876. 5047 
The Polish Swan.—At page 145 of his ‘Birds of Northumberland and 
Durham,’ Mr. Hancock has a note about a Polish swan mentioned in 
Mr. Harting’s ‘ Handbook’ as having occurred at Hartlepool, and he rightly 
refuses to give it admission as it rested on newspaper authority. I have 
just lighted on the passage in the newspaper in question, which is a cutting 
from the ‘ Hartlepool Free Press,’ reproduced in the ‘ Field.’ It states that 
the plumage was pure white, legs and feet slate-gray, weight twenty pounds, 
and that it was shot in March, and presented to the Museum of the Hartle- 
pool Natural-History Society. I went to the Museum some time after, and 
saw a bird which [ was told was the one, and as far as I could judge, 
without plates or specimens to compare it by, it was nothing more than an 
escaped mute swan. For my own part I have never thought that the 
Polish swan was a good species; but the question is attracting a good deal 
of attention in Norfolk now, and it is hoped that we shall elicit some new 
facts. It will be entered into fully in the third volume of the ‘ Birds of 
Norfolk,’ and I will not anticipate Mr. Stevenson further than to say that 
he considers the gray feet are no good specific character, an opinion in 
which I entirely coincide, from having observed mute swans in the Ser- 
pentine and at Gatton Park, in Surrey, whose feet were of this colour. In 
a pair which we at present have alive, which were sent down by the 
Zoological Society, and have now four cygnets, they are a dark gray: and 
I believe these are the same pair which I saw at Mr. Castang’s in Leadenhall 
on the 3rd of May, 1871, when the legs and feet were nearly white. That 
pair went to the Zoological Gardens, and I remember noticing soon after 
that the feet had got darker. Of course, if the colour is not permanent it 
cannot be a specific character. Again, the fact that in the same brood 
have been more than once found cygnets white and cygnets brownish gray, 
militates much against it. On this head, see the ‘ Field’ of July 8th, 1871; 
Bull. Soc. Vaudoise Sc. Nat., x., No. 61, 1869; and ‘The Mute Swan on 
the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk,’ p. 60.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
Varieties of the Teal.—Mr. Sclater mentions a young female teal which 
had the breast so red as to have the appearance of being stained with blood 
(Zool. S. 8. 4816). I bought one some time ago in Leadenhall which this 
description would pretty well apply to, and out of the great number which 
I have examined in this market I never saw another which was so strongly 
suffused with rufous.—Id. 
Summer Plumage of the Little Grebe.—I have no doubt, from Mr. 
Corbin’s accurate description, of his bird being the little grebe in summer 
plumage. It just resembles some I have had, except in being slightly 
larger. At this period of the year—March and April—the little grebe is 
much darker than in winter time. By far the darkest I ever saw, and it 
amounts to a real melanism, with only a little bay in the throat, is in the 
collection of Mr. Bond. It was caught at Dartford, and kept, I do not 
