NOTES AND QUERIES. 269 
shooting tenant, when in company with Mr. M. B. Byles. I received 
particulars orally from both these gentlemen, and traced the specimen in 
the ledger of the person who mounted it. It is now in Mr. Boyd’s 
possession in town. Among other birds which have occurred in Skye, but 
which I was not able to include in my list of the avifauna of that island in 
1886, are the following : — Brown-headed Gull, which probably visits us 
on its way to breed in North Uist, where Mr. J. Mackenzie tells me he 
has seen it breeding; Bar-tailed Godwit, obtained in mid-winter; Chiff- 
chaff, first observed by myself in April, 1889; Crossbill, detected by Mr. 
G. 8. Dumville Lees; Sand Martin, observed by myself in summer, and 
by Mr. Lees in autumn; Pintail, Pochard, Scaup, Scoter, Smew, and 
Pinkfooted Goose ; Pallas’s Sand Grouse; Quail; Tawny Owl obtained in 
several quarters; Buffon’s Skua and Leach’s Petrel. Incidentally, I may 
say that no Glaucous or Iceland Gulls have occurred, to my knowledge, on 
the Skye coast for three years, though a very sharp look-out has been kept. 
As the Pintail is rare in the Hebrides, it may be well to state that I 
myself identified the species —H. A. Macrpuerson (Carlisle). 
Hen Skylark singing in Confinement.—Last year I reared a Skylark 
(taken when six days old), and after the autumn moult it began to repeat 
the usual song; I then turned it into one of my smaller aviaries with 
a pair of Leiothria; it soon got used to the size of its home and flew about 
freely, being rarely on the ground, and to my surprise frequently using a 
ledge and sometimes a branch as a perch, its long hind toe being used as a 
support, exactly after the manner of perching birds; at intervals, and 
usually when my older caged Skylark was singing, this bird would 
commence the same song, which, however, terminated abruptly whenever 
a Leiothria dashed down near to it. On June 16th I heard it singing, and, 
not having examined it minutely, I naturally concluded that it was a cock 
bird ; but on the following day it laid an egg upon the grass in the aviary, and 
thus decided its sex beyond question. I should be glad to know whether 
anyone else has ever heard of a hen Skylark singing.—A. G. BurLer 
(Penge Road, Beckenham). 
Congenital Blindness in Birds.—I hope you may think the following 
sufficiently interesting for publication in ‘ The Zoologist,’ of which I am 
always a most interested reader. While on a visit to a country rectory near 
Pontefract, a chicken six weeks old, of the ordinary barn-door variety, and 
one of a brood of a dozen or so, was pointed out to me as being almost, if 
not quite, blind. On examining it I found it to have double congenital 
cataract. Both lenses were so opaque that it could only have had the 
smallest possible amount of vision, if any. One could pick it up without- 
any attempt on its part to escape, and it was quite unable to find its food, 
which had always to be put immediately under its bill. It was small and 
weakly as compared with others of the same brood. Oue kuows that 
