418 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



suspect that it was a sexual difference, but I tliouglit the pale- 

 colored irides to be simply abnormal. 



H. James Rainet. 



Sir, 



With regard to what Mr. Cripps sajs in STa.AY 

 Feathers, Vol. VII., page 305, on the extraordinary habit of 

 Porphyrio poliocephalus laying up in holes in the ground, it 

 may interest your readers to hear that I once captured a Water 

 Hen, ( Gallinula cJiloropus,) in a similar retreat. 



I was out shooting on the Ganges near Allahabad, in a punt, 

 and was within a few yards of the right bank, which was here 

 composed of stiff clay interspersed with large nodular masses 

 of kankar, a "kankar bank" in fact, when I saw a bird just 

 peep out of a moderately-large hole and then retire. I landed 

 as soon as I could, and thrusting my arm into the hole, which 

 was about 2' &^ deep, pulled out a lively Water Hen which 

 fought tooth and nail. 



The direct cause of this individual taking to this subterrane- 

 ous mode of life, was doubtless want of suitable cover in a 

 place where it found abundance of suitable food (its stomach 

 was full of small shells,) but bearing in mind the affinity of this 

 group to the Struthionidw, an extinct member of which was 

 supposed to be troglodyte in its habits, I would suggest that 

 this habit, if it receives further confirmation, is a reversion to 

 an ancestral trait in some extinct progenitor of the family who 

 thus habitually dwelt. 



Calcutta, J. Cooeburn. 



^Uh February 1879. 



Sir, 



Our Lucknow Museum has a specimen of the Pink*. 

 headed Duck, which Dr. Bonavia probablj purchased in the 

 Lucknow market. I have not myself been able to obtain a 

 specimen ; but in December last, I saw two of them on a jheel 

 at Rahimabad, about 25 miles from Lucknow. I watched them, 

 through my binoculars for a considerable time, but failed to 

 get a shot at them. 



Geo. Reid. 



Sir, 



With reference to the assertion made by the late 

 Colonel Tickeli, that he was able to sex eggs, I send you an 

 extract from the " Leisure Hour," for February 1879, p. 80, 

 which shews that such a feat is not only possible, but that the 

 sexing of eggs is habitually practised by some poultry raisers : — 



