QoL THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Yarrell’s woodcut of either nest or bird very good; the bird is 
depicted with a double moustache, and the head erroneously 
appears to be of the same colour as the back. The outline, 
however, is good, and I have somewhere read that it was sketched 
from life by the late Mr. Blyth. 
The eggs are generally six in number, though I have found 
seven, white, with irregular specks and short wavy lines of 
brown, with a pink or golden tinge about them when perfectly 
fresh, but showing a dark zone when incubated, owing to the shell 
becoming opaque. Joshua Nudd once found two nests on the 
Broads, one on the top of the other, each containing seven eggs. 
On another occasion he found twelve eggs in a nest, but in this 
case two birds claimed ownership, as he suspected, from seeing 
two hens close to the nest. I have seen the cock bird fly off the 
nest, though the fact of its taking any part in incubation is 
doubted by a good authority. 
The plumage is almost too well known to ornithologists to 
require description. All the hen birds which have passed 
through my hands have had some trace of the black markings 
on the back, but Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser state (‘ Birds of 
Europe,’ vol. iii., p. 60) that it is ultimately lost. One partly in 
male plumage, and with a trace of the black moustache, lived 
and laid eggs in the aviary of Mr. Keulemans, and it is just 
possible that some such specimen may have suggested the 
remarks of the authors just mentioned. For a long time after 
quitting the nest the young have black backs, and this is visible 
a long way off when flying; the back is also quite black when 
they are in the nest, the immature plumage in this respect being 
very distinct from that of the adult.* 
The nestling when just hatched is blind, and even when only 
one day old has a brilliantly coloured mouth, which brilliancy 
consists of four rows of black and white spots raised on the 
surface of the palate, which is red. How long the young present 
this remarkable appearance I do not know, but it is not lost 
until after they have left the nest. 

* In this plumage the young bird looks so different to the adult that it 
was once regarded by Bonaparte as specifically distinct, and described by 
him as Calamophilus sibiricus (‘Comptes Rendus,’ 1856, p. 414).—Eb. 
