VOL. VII.] NOTES. 119 



where Mr. J. Moore saw a drake and a brown bird on 

 July 31st. The numbers on R-ostherne had risen to 

 seven, all black birds, on July 7th, but Mr. Boyd failed 

 to find any on the 9th ; on the 12th, however there 

 was a single male bird on the water. It is, of course, well 

 known that a few immature or non-breeding Scoters remain off 

 our shores in most summers, but the presence of so large a 

 number as was noticed by Mr. Browns word, and the repeated 

 occurrence of various individuals on inland waters, surely indi- 

 cates an unusual movement of the species. T. A. Coward. 



In Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. 

 The visits of Common Scoters to inland waters when on 

 passage in April and again in October are perhaps to be 

 expected, but the occurrence of this species in such situations 

 during July is surely unusual. On July 13th, 1913, there 

 was a brown, grey-cheeked bird, a female or immature male, 

 on one of the reservoirs at Tring, Hertfordshire. This bird 

 was at the same place on July 19th, and on that date I saw 

 another, an adult male, feeding in shallow water at Weston 

 Turville reservoir, Buckinghamshire. In six consecutive 

 dives this bird was below the surface for 29, 27, 28, 25, 26, 

 and 24 seconds, and as the intervals between the dives only 

 averaged five seconds the bird was under water five-sixths 

 of the time. It may be that the duration of the dive is 

 determined by the depth at which food is obtained, for the 

 bird at Tring was feeding in deep water, and nine dives which 

 I timed occupied respectively 40, 37, 45, 32, 51, 49, 44, 49, 

 and 39 seconds. Chas. Oldham. 



COLOUR OF THE BEAK IN THE EIDER. 



In his article on the plumages of the Eider {supra, p. 75) 

 Mr. J. G. Millais expresses the general view, viz. that the colour 

 of the beak in the adult male Eider is olive-green on its 

 upper surface. In life the base of the beak in the adult male 

 is orange-yellow, and this colour extends as far as the extreme 

 end of the nostrils. It commences to fade soon after death, 

 beginning at the nostrils about half an hour after death, 

 and fading upwards and as a rule in a few days, or eveii 

 hours, this colour is all gone. There are exceptions to this, 

 however, as witness the bird in the Oldham Museum, which 

 had the base of the beak still yellow when the bird was being 

 set up, and this combined with a V-mark on the throat led 

 Mr. Stubbs to call attention to the specimen as a supposed 

 Pacific Eider. 

 All the books say that the beak is green, which it certiainly 



