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



hen. The Fantail had 33 tail-feathers, the Homer of course only the 

 usual twelve. Yet the pair of mongrel squabs which resulted from their 

 union had only 14 and 15 tail-feathers respectively. I may mention 

 that the Homer hen's subsequent offspring by a cock of her own breed 

 showed no trace of the Fantail; indeed, were telegony better established 

 than it is, so weak a sire could hardly be expected to produce any 

 telegonic phenomena. 



A similar case was the failure of the Silver chequer Homer hen, 

 paired to a Blue chequer, to reproduce any offspring of her own colour, 

 either directly or in the second generation, as recorded in Nature, June 

 12th, 1902, p. 157. 



E. Progressive Variation. 



Cases of a variation carrying on the line of development of a species 

 are probably much commoner than is supposed, the attention of natura- 

 lists having hitherto been fixed rather on reversionary types than 

 progressive ones. (Of. Bateson ; Materials for the Study of Variation, 

 p. 307). 



Such a case is the tendency to extension of the green ocellated 

 spots in a skin of a male Polyplectron bical carat um (Malay Peacock- 

 Pheasant) described by me recently from a skin (unfortunately a poor 

 specimen) in the Indian Museum. (Reg. No. 21344). In this the 

 black speckling on the upper back is in groups of spots in certain 

 feathers, richly glossed with green, forming rudimentary ocelli in a 

 non-ocellated region ; and the black patches of the outer webs of the 

 lower tail coverts are green-glossed to some extent, thus approaching 

 ocelli in quite another way. (Nature, Vol. LXV., p. 367). 



Another example is afforded by the Gold-backed Woodpecker 

 (Brachyptemus aurantius) , whose orange-yellow back frequently shows 

 a strong admixture of red, as I have often observed in young birds at all 

 events. (See also Blanford, F.B.I. Birds, Vol. Ill, p. 50). 



The Bronze-Cap Teal (Eunetta falcata), which has of late years 

 been invading India in unusual numbers, was so common last winter 

 1901-1902 in the Bazaar that I secured no less than a dozen specimens, 

 most of them females. Among these I noticed one with a strong green 

 gloss on the head ; one with a tail as purely grey as a male's, and one 

 with a tail as distinctly barred as a female Gadwall's, there being thus 

 two cases of progressive as against one of reversionary variation. 



The dull male of the Gadwall (Ghaulelasmus streperus) closely allied 

 to this species, sometimes shows a green gloss on the head (see Hume ; 

 Game-birds of India, Vol. Ill, p. 186) : I have never seen this myself, 

 but have seen one with a plum-coloured gloss. 



