154 F. Finn — General Notes on Variation in Birds. [No. 3, 



XVI.— General Notes on Variation in Birds.— By F. Fink, B.A., F.Z.S., 

 Deputy Superintendent of the Indian Museum. 



A. Some Striking Cases of Variation in Structural Characters. 



I have occasionally been able to note marked deviations instructure, 

 which might conceivably have been useful in some cases. 



Thus I saw at a Pigeon show in Oxford, on October 23rd, 1891, a 

 white Fantail Pigeon with the two inner front toes on each foot 

 webbed. The abnormality is not common, but has been recorded by 

 Darwin. (Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. I. p., 160). 



I obtained in Port Said in 1894 the feet of a common fowl with a 

 long hallux like a Curassow's but not apparently capable of flexion at 

 the terminal joint, being more like the supernumerary hallux so often 

 present in these birds— especially in Port Said specimens, where every 

 gradation between this and the normal hallux may be seen. 



In Zanzibar, where the fowls are usually of the long-legged Malay 

 type, I occasionally saw a very short-legged specimen with the usual long 

 neck. As there are some breeds of fowls, e.g., the Japanese Bantam, 

 wherein the legs are always very short, this is probably an easily per- 

 petuated and abrupt variation. 



At a meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club last year, 

 Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier showed the head of a wild Rook (Corvus frugilegus) 

 with a remarkably elongated beak approaching in form that of a 

 Chough. 



The Chough itself (Graculus gractilus) in confinement is liable to an 

 elongation of the bill which is often very regular, and makes the beak 

 resemble that of an Ibis. This might well occur in the wild state — as 

 overgrowth of the upper chap is known to do in some birds — and be 

 of service. The subjacent tissues may also penetrate the overgrowth of 

 horn, for Mr. Rutledge found on attempting to cut back the overgrown 

 bills of some Choughs that this could not be done, as blood was drawn 

 in cutting off the first half inch. 



Recently I procured in the Calcutta Bazaar a common Quail 

 (Cotumix communis), possessing on each foot five toes like a Dorking 

 fowl. In each case, as so often happens in five-toed fowls, the true 

 hallux was higher up the shank than usual. The upper supernumerary 

 hallux was quite distinct, but shorter than the normal one, whereas in 

 five-toed foivls it is usually longer. One only of these extra toes had a 

 claw, but as it was loose on the other, and ultimately came off, it had 



