VERTEBRATE ANIMALS OF LEICESTERSHIRE. 233 
sex, which has not often happened, we have ascertained it by 
dissection. Now in all this number of birds we have never found 
a single female. Some had the wings completely deprived of the 
primaries and secondaries, showing without doubt that they had 
all been moulted at once; others had their digital and meta- 
carpal feathers (the primaries) emerging from their sheaths, 
whilst the cubital feathers (or secondaries) were only just 
beginning to show, indicating that the primaries had been shed 
only a very short time before the secondaries; but this difference 
was unimportant, since in each case the birds were perfectly 
incapable of flight. On the other hand, all the females which 
were obtained at the same season had the wings irregularly 
furnished with quill-feathers, some of the natural length, others 
a little shorter, others again entirely wanting, but never to such 
an extent as to prevent the bird from flying. 
From these observations it is clear that in the case of our 
native wild ducks the quill-feathers are moulted all at once in 
the Mallards (depriving them for the time being of the use of 
their wings), whilst in the females the moult is so gradual that 
the capacity for flight is never impaired. This moult, so 
differently effected in the two sexes of the same species, takes 
place not without reason. 
The Mallard does not trouble himself about the brood, whilst 
the female taking the entire charge of them has need of all her 
resources for the purpose. Hence Nature has been less exacting 
with her than with her mate. 
NOTES ON THE VERTEBRATE ANIMALS OF 
LEICESTERSHIRE. 
By Monracu Browne, F.Z.S. 
Curator, Town Museum, Leicester. 
(Continued from p. 202). 
Order CoLumpz.—F amily Conumpipa. 
Columba palumbus, Linn. Ring Dove (Wood Pigeon).—Resi- 
dent; generally distributed. In the crop of a Wood Pigeon 
presented to the Museum by Mr. Bernard Ellis in 1882, sixty-one 
acorns were found. 
