Correspondence. 363


imported alive before. It is about the size of a Rook, glossy

black, with a large expansible crest and a pendulous feathered

cylindrical wattle on the breast.


Belonging to the group of American Chatterers ( Cotingidce ),.

it is largely a fruit-eater, and ought to be easily kept. A speci¬

men can be seen at the South Kensington Museum of Natural

History. F.F.



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.



OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.


Sir, —If I am not mistaken the illustration of the Red-necked

Phalaropes which stands as the frontispiece of the September Magazine,

represents three stuffed birds, and if this is so, I cannot help thinking that a

great many of our members will agree with me that such “ faked ” photo¬

graphs are undesirable and also unworthy of reproduction in a periodical

which is devoted to recording the culture of living birds.


To begin with, I think that our frontispiece, at any rate, should be a

representation of an original drawing, painting, or photograph, and not

something borrowed from some other work, but if the latter has to be

resorted to, let us at least have a representation of living birds.


I11 “ Our Rarer British Breeding Birds,” by R. Kearton, there is a very

pretty photo, of a Red-necked Phalarope (p. 84) and on p. 81 an equally

good one of its nest and eggs : both done from life.


I have at all times a very strong dislike to photographs of stuffed

birds, unless it is impossible to obtain any from living ones, and then the

stuffed ones must be mounted to perfection. If the representation in the

September Magazine is done from life, the birds certainly grouped them¬

selves very unnaturally, standing one behind the other and all staring in

the same direction : personally I cannot believe they did pose like that, for

to begin with there would probably be more than one young bird, and

secondly such babies would be hiding amongst the rushes or the grass.


Then again, at the risk of being considered cranky and tiresome, I

am afraid I think it is a pity to take up valuable space with an illustration

(again borrowed) of two common Rooks, whose courtship most people in

England can see without much trouble in the last weeks of winter, or early

ones of spring. Hubert D. Asti.ey.


A REMARKABLE FAMILY OF BLACKBIRDS.


Sir, —In my' article last month I pointed out that the wholesale

protection of birds now enforced was responsible for the great increase of

albinism noticeable in some of our more familiar species during the past



