294 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



vator of Forests a few days ago, we were attracted by the cry of a fully 

 fiedo'ed young White-collared Kingfisher {Sauro])atis cliloris) lying helpless on 

 the ground and picking it up, found that its wings and feathers were hope- 

 lessly together by the glued seeds of Pisonia e.vcelsa, Blume, some of which I 

 enclose for your inspection. It will be noticed that there is a thick litie of an 

 extremely viscid fluid along each of the 5 angular sides of the nearly cylin- 

 drical seed of this species, sufficiently sticky to fasten the wing feathers of 

 a fairly large bird together and to those of its body. It was with considerable 

 difficulty that the seeds by which the feathers were stuck were pulled off, 

 and this was not done without leaving a considerable amount of the sticky 

 fiviid on the feathers and pulling out many of them ; had we not come to the 

 rescue of the bird, it must have inevitably died as it could not have possibly 

 extricated itself. The bird was not on the path when we first passed along 

 it, and it was only on our return to camp after being in the forest for about 

 two hours that we found the bird. It is probable that the young bird had 

 been reared in the tree and was caught by the seeds as soon as it had 

 fluttered out of its nest. The tree is a free flowerer, and may account for 

 the deaths of numbers of young birds annually. 



0. GILBERT ROGERS, 

 Conservator of Forests, Pegu Circle, 



Lower Burma. 

 Rangoon, l^th April 1911. 



[On receiving the above note, we were doubtful of the identification of the King- 

 fisher mentioned and wrote to Mr. Rogers, who kindly sent us a description'. of the 

 bird, and from that it seems to have been a white-collared Kingfisher, Satiropatis 

 cliloris. As regards the seeds Dr. Willies, writing in ^Zowermg' Ptoiis and Ferns 

 tinder the head of "Pisonia" says : — " The Anthocarp is glandular and is one of the 

 few fruits which are able to cling to feathers. Forbes states that on the Keeling 

 Islands the fruits adhere to the feathers of herons in such quantities as sometimes 

 absolutely to cripple them, or even to cause their death'.' — Eds.] 



No. LI v.— NATURAL SELECTION. 



At the risk of appearing over-captious, I would ask to be allowed space 

 in the Journal to traverse a statement appearing on page 848, Vol. XX, 

 No. 3, in Capt. Lloyd's note on a " Hyssna with deformed feet." 



The sentence is as follows : — "According to the selection theory a species 

 is not only brought into being by natural selection but after its arrival is 

 kept constant by the same means ; that is to say, it is believed that any 

 individuals toJiich differ appreciably from the type of the species must die out, 

 because they are less suited to the circumstances of life than their fellows." 



The italics are mine and denote the words I take objection to. I do 

 not think that they present a fair conclusion from anything advanced by 



