ANAS BOSCHAS. 



(The wad Duck.) 



" Then after one long slope was mounted, saw, 

 Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand pineS;, 

 A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink 

 To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere. 

 Round as the red eye of an Eagle-Owl, 

 Under the half-dead sunset glared/' 



Gareth and Lynette. 



In the ' Field/ October 24, 1874, appeared the following: — " Duck assuming 

 Drake's Plumage. — I have now what I think an extraordinary freak of nature 

 in my yard — namely, a four-year-old tame Wild Duck, the plumage of the 

 neck, breast, and back being almost that of the Mallard, with a curled feather 

 over its tail. These peculiarities have only developed themselves upon its 

 moulting this year. — Rev. J. Chaloner, Newton Kyme, near Tadcaster." This 

 bird was kindly presented to me by the owner ; and her portrait, " taken 

 from the life " by Mr. Keulemans, is given with the throats of the Bramble - 

 Finch. 



The male assuming the plumage of the female appears to* be more rare 

 than the converse ; yet it is done every year by the drake in this species, for 

 which Yarrell assigns a reason in his 1st edition, vol. iii. p. 179. 



Mr. Harting, in his ' Birds of Middlesex,' says (p. 8) : — " Mr. Bond 

 informs me that he has more than once shot a Sparrow-Hawk in the male 

 plumage, which proved on dissection to be a female." Mr. Gould, on the 

 authority of Mr. Blyth, mentions the Brown Linnet as a species in which 

 this occurs. 



