Vol. XXXV.] 108 



Type in the Tring Museum : (^ ad. Bugoma forest, 

 16. X. 13. Dr. van Someren coll. 



Obs. This bird differs from Apalis n. nigriceps in the 

 colour of the upper surface, upper and under tail-coverts, 

 and tail. 



Mr. H. F. WiTHERBY exhibited tliree young Black- 

 necked Grebes, and remarked that he had often been 

 struck by the different appearance of young Grebes in 

 down-plumage at different ages. When the bird was 

 very young the down appeared to be finer and shorter 

 and the colour-pattern more definite than when the bird 

 grcAV older. At one time Mr. Witherby had thought that 

 this might be due to a second plumage of down, but an 

 examination of a series of young Black-necked Grebes of 

 different ages, which he had collected in Hungary in 1914, 

 showed that this was not so. 



Mr. Witherby pointed out that, although the older birds 

 appeared to be clothed entirely in down, the feathers which 

 succeeded the down were in reality more than half-grown, 

 but were entirely concealed by the down, which adhered to 

 them all over the body in a remarkably persistent way. The 

 feathers grew very regularly, and gradually pushed up the 

 down, which thus appeared to grow longer and, by becoming 

 more separated, tended to break up the colour-pattern. In 

 most young when the feathers began to grow a good deal of 

 the down was soon rubbed off and the feathers were revealed 

 at an early stage in their growth. 



Mr. C. F. M. SwYNNERTON read a paper * on ''The 

 Coloration of the Eggs of Birds and of the Mouths of 

 Nestlings.'^ He had experimented on certain egg-enemies, 

 and they had shown marked preferences — refusing certain 

 eggs, while accepting others. This suggested a reason why 

 certain conspicuous nests and eggs escaped complete de- 

 struction. Thus, too, the distinctive appearance of eggs 



* [A full account of the experiments and of the results arrived at 

 will appear in a future number of ' The Ibis.' — Ed.] 



