5166 THE ZooLoGisT—NovEMBER, 1876. 
Phasianus torquatus = P. decollatus!—A Phasianus torquatus in my 
aviary, which before its moult had a remarkably broad white collar round 
the neck, has now apparently completed its moult, and has entirely lost the 
collar, not a white feather remaining: it is now, in fact, the Phasianus 
decollatus of Elliot’s ‘ Phasianide.’ May not his P. decollatus prove to be 
either a skin of P. torquatus in a similar state of moult, or that the P. tor- 
quatus occasionally loses the collar altogether and becomes a P. decollatus? 
In other respects the bird appears to have recovered his full plumage, though 
I think the light feathers on the crown of the head are not so marked. 
Should the white collar reappear within the next month I shall at once 
write to inform you.u—John W. G. Spicer ; Spye Park, Chippenham, Wilts, 
October 1, 1876. 
PS.—Since writing to you on the above subject, I find my P. torquatus 
is rapidly assuming the white collar.—J. W. G. S.; October 14, 1876. 
Whimbrel in Wiltshire.—I saw here, on the 17th of May, a whimbrel 
(Nwnenius phe@opus), in the flesh, which had been shot out of a flock of six 
on May 18th, near Berwick Bassett, some seven miles from here, by a 
labourer who was scaring birds. It was an adult male, in very fair 
plumage, and extremely fat. Its gizzard contained the remains of earth- 
worms with a blade or two of grass, and a few small stones. According to 
the Rey. A. C. Smith’s ‘ Ornithology of Wilts,’ this species has only occurred 
once before (in 1888) in this county —T7. Graham Balfour ; Cotton House, 
Marlborough, Wilts, October 6, 1876. 
Woodcock migrating in July.—In July, a few years ago, I had brought 
to me a woodcock which had struck itself against the telegraph-wires near 
Beverley, breaking its beak and cutting a deep hole into its breast. It was 
a bird of the year, in capital condition, and weighed twelve ounces. I had 
an idea at the time that it had been bred in the neighbourhood, but I have 
“nested” through a great many woods in East Yorkshire, and [ have never 
as yet been able to establish the fact of its breeding. The birds will some- 
times linger late in the spring; in fact, whilst the woodcocks are nesting 
in Scotland, others, which have been, perhaps, far to the southward, are 
only just passing over Yorkshire, or resting, waiting for favourable winds to 
carry them away to the north. An easterly wind, whilst it always brings 
them on the Yorkshire coast in the autumn, just as surely retards their 
journey in the spring. The spring of the present year added additional 
testimony to this very old and well-known fact, for the birds were detained 
to an unusually late period, and I should not be greatly surprised to hear 
that some very few had nested, as they were evidently paired, and as 
evening drew on they issued out of the coverts and toyed and chased each 
other round the woods, uttering their peculiar breeding cries. Though 
Ihave said I should not be greatly surprised at hearing that some very 
few had nested here, up to the present I have not heard of a single 
