MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 805 



In Vol. XIX, No. 5 of the Journal of 24th June 1910, I see that there 

 are only 2 records of this Snipe's occurrence in India. I send therefore 

 the skin to add to any further records that may have been received since 

 the above date. 



C. GWYER, i.F.s. 



Tharrawady, L. Burma, 

 Sth November 1913. 



[The skin is, as Mr. Gwyer thought, that of Swinhoe's Snipe, Gallinago megala, 

 and is the fourth record of the bird within our area, Capt. Venning' having 

 recorded one from Pyawle in 1911, in the Journal Vol. XXI, p. 269. — Eds.] 



No. XXII.— SOLITARY SNIPE AT QUETTA. 



Since the end of September, 10 Solitary Snipes, Gallinago solitaria, have 

 been shot here mostly in gardens round cantonments. I think I am correct 

 in saying that there is no record of one having been shot here for 40 years 

 before this. "We have had particularly mild weather so far so that hard 

 weather can hardly be the cause. I do not know if Solitary Snipe migrate 

 in numbers, but if so I should say the solution was that they have found 

 better food coming down by this route than by their old route wherever 

 that was. It would be interesting to know if there has been a scarcity of 

 them in any place where they have been observed in any numbers before. 



B. L. CLARKE. 



QuETTA Club, 11th November 1913. 



No. XXIII.— A NOTE ON THE SUB-SPECIES OF THE SPOT-BILL 

 DUCK {ANAS POECILOURYNCHA.) 



In the Bombay Natural History Journal, Vol. XVII, p. 558, the late 

 Mr. E. W. Oates described a new form of Polionetta {Anas) under the name 

 of Polionetta haringtoni. At that time I considered that this duck had been 

 so named on insufficient material, and when writing " Indian Ducks " I 

 refused to accept the duck as a good species. 



The Society are now in possession of quite a good series of skins, 10 in 

 number, of the supposed haringtoni, and these have been sent home for me 

 to examine, together with the British Museum skins of zonorhyncha, the 

 Chinese Spot Bill, and poecilorhyncha, the Indian Spot-bill. This material 

 has enabled me to modify my former opinion, and I now think we can 

 fairly satisfactorily discriminate between the three sub-species, poecilo- 

 rhgncha, zonorhyncha and haringtoni. 



The skins available for examination in the British Museum collection are 

 as follows : — 



Ty^\C2i\ jyoscilorhyncha . . . . . . , . . . 19 skins. 



Typical zonorhyncha . . . . . . . . . . 12 ,, 



Skins labelled ])oecilorhyncha from Burmah . . 6 „ 

 The Bombay Skins 10 „ 



In addition to these I have been able to examine about forty other skins 

 from India, Burmah and China. 



The result of my examination shews that Anas foicilorhyncha haringtoni 

 is the connecting link between the two other forms p. poecilorhyncha and 

 p. zonorhyncha and that the three forms may be discriminated according to 

 the following key, though it must be remembered that amongst these, as 

 with all other sub-species, individuals are to be met with, more especially 

 in the area where two forms meet, which cannot well be placed deiinitely 

 in any one of the three. 



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