1861.] MR. A. NEWTON ON RARE BIRDs' EGGS. 393 



boschas, Linn.) and an ordinary farm-yard Duck. It was sent to 

 Mr. Newcome by the intelligent gamekeeper at Hornby Castle, 

 Mr. Anthony Savage, from whom I learn that Mr. Durham has 

 since bred several other hybrids from the same male Widgeon and a 

 female of the domesticated variety of Alias boschas known as the 

 " Grey Call-duck." Of these hybrids Mr. Savage informs me that 

 he sent a pair to Mr. Grantley Berkeley, and another pair to Mr. 

 John Hancock. 



No detailed notice of the particular cross I now exhibit has to my 

 knowledge been hitherto published, though Mr. Yarrell in the last 

 edition of his work ('B. B.' ed. 3, iii. p. 276) mentions the fact as 

 having occurred, and my friend M. de Selys-Longchamps, who has, 

 it is well known, devoted especial attention to the subject, informed 

 me about two years ago that he was aware of other instances of such 

 a hybrid. According to the views of the last-named accurate ob- 

 server, the Anas bimacidata of Keyserling and Blasius* — the Anas 

 glocitans of Gmelin (but not of Pallas) — is the result of this cross ; 

 and Mr. Berkeley has also expressed a similar opinion ('Field,' 

 March 16, 1861). With the greatest deference to these authorities, 

 my own idea is that the birds so denominated have descended from 

 the Wild Duck (Alias boschas, Linn.) and the Teal (^Querquedula 

 crecca, Steph.), as has already been suggested by Mr. Tomes and 

 Mr. Bartlett ('Zoologist,' p. 1698) ; and I have arrived at this con- 

 clusion not only from repeated examinations of the specimens de- 

 scribed by Mr. Vigors (Linn. Trans, xiv. p. 559), which are now 

 in the British Museum, but also from having seen several other birds 

 of the same kind in different collections. 



The principal distinctions observable between the subject of the 

 present notice and the so-called Anas bimaculata are in the greater 

 size of the former, and in the comparative obsoleteness of the dark 

 patch which, in that supposed species, separates the lighter-coloured 

 spots on the sides of the head. In the bird I now submit to your 

 notice this patch is reduced to a mere line, scarcely perceptible until 

 looked for. The breast also wants the well-defined dark spots which 

 are characteristic of the hybrid known as the "Bimaculated Duck." 



3. On some new or rare Birds' Eggs. 

 By Alfred Newton, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



(Plate XXXIX.) 



Without in any way wishing to exact for oology a greater degree 

 of attention than most naturalists think it deserves, I entertain a 

 very strong conviction that its study will eventually be found highly 

 useful to the systematic ornithologist. I am, however, quite content 



* Several writers assign the authority of Pennant for the trivial name " bima- 

 culata." I cannot trace it further back than the ' Wirbelthiere Europa's' of the 

 naturalists I have mentioned. There is no question about the Anas glocitans of 

 Pallas being a good species, but I do not know any recorded instance of its oc- 

 currence in Europe. 



