150 MR. J. LEWLS BONHOTE ON HYBRID DUCKS. [Mar. 7, 



those varieties which had proved successful. If by hybridisation 

 we again gave variation its play, it would be only natural that a 

 large number of the varieties produced should bear a resemblance 

 to existing species ; but, on the other hand, if this view held 

 good, the unsuccessful varieties should also appear, which was 

 shown to be the case among those individuals some of the 

 characters of which could be referred to no known species. 



Reference was made to a paper by the authoi'*, recently read 

 before the Linnean Society, in which he had pointed out that 

 patches of colour or absence of colom* tended to show themselves 

 first of all on certain fixed parts of the body, on both mammals and 

 birds, and for which the name "poecilomeres" had been given. He 

 then demonstrated that the variations occurring on these hybrids 

 all followed the lines of the poecilomeres. 



As illusti-ating the foregoing remarks, Mr. Bonhote exhibited : 



(1) A male Teal in full plumage, shot wild near Cambridge, and 

 showing on the neck the ring of the Mallard. 



(2) A Sabine's Snipe, in Avhich the back and tail-feathers were 

 shown to approximate to the Great Snipe rather than to the 

 Common Snipe. This was a constant feature in all the true 

 Sabine's Snipe that he had examined. 



These were exhibited as being instances of natural varieties, 

 showing characters more or less resembling those in other species. 



A duck was also shown which had i-ecently been shot in 

 England, and brought to the British Museum. There could be 

 but little doubt that it represented a cross between a Pintail and 

 Wigeon, since the back, with the exception of the scapulai's, 

 resembled that of a Pintail, and the breast that of a young Wigeon 

 drake. The head, however, vvas very peculiar, the crown showing 

 a mixture of Pintail and Wigeon, while a patch behind the eye, 

 resembling that found in the Teal, was of a dull metallic bronze ; 

 the sides of the face showed an irregular line of rufous buif, and 

 the chin was dull brownish black. It was worthy of note that the 

 metalhc patch was clearly noticeable, though not so marked, in 

 the American Wigeon ; while the h\if£ stripe across the face 

 was found in the New-Zealand Duck. 



Attention was called to a pair of Sheldrake-Call-duck crosses, 

 which had been bred at Kilberry, as stated in the ' Field ' of 

 the 25th February, 1905, and kindly sent to the author by 

 Mr. Campbell. Whether or not they were hybrids, Mr. Bonhote 

 could not say ; but the interest lay in the fact that all the Call- 

 ducks there were of the colour of the wild Maliai'd, and that these 

 specimens (as they could see) differed in having assumed patches 

 of white, and these patches all followed the lines of poecilomeres, 

 and showed clearly that the metallic patch of the Teal, which had 

 been present in so many of the crosses, was in this case visible, 

 though to a much slighter extent, as a white patch. 



Lastly, there was exhibited a pair of living birds representing 



* Jouru. Lirm. Soc, Zool. xxix. p. 185 (1904). 



