52 i Letters, Extracts, Xolices, §,%?. 
Florence^ Avas bouglit by the late M. Vckemans, Director of 
the Zoological Garden of Antwerp. Even at the present 
day we are ignorant of the exact locality inhabited by 
this rare Jay. 
Yours &c., 
Turin Zoological Museum. T. Salvadori. 
22nd March, 1902. 
Sjrs, — Having loDg paid particular attention to Baer's 
Pochard, I was much interested in Mr. J. G. Millais's note 
in 'The Ibis'' for last January (p. 192) on the courtship of 
the species. As a matter of fact, I briefly drew attention 
to the gesture which he describes some years ago (Journ. 
As. Soc. Beng. 1897, p. 527), and later recorded that it, was 
common to the female of the species (Proc. As. Soc. Beng., 
April 1878). 
Since then I have seen the male White-eyed Pochard 
(Nyroca ferruginea) jerk back its neck in a precisely similar 
manner to its near ally ; but as the neck in this species is 
shorter and thicker than in Nyroca baeri, the general eflPect 
is far less strilving. I have not seen the female White-eyed 
Pochard indulge in this backward jerk of the neck, but she 
will probably prove to possess the habit, since the so-called 
pairing-gestures of male birds are very often shared by the 
females, being indeed in many cases apparently the expression 
of several emotions and proper to the whole species. Every- 
body must have noticed the nodding of the head in the 
domesticated Mallard, and the erection of the crest and 
expansion and swinging of the tail in the Muscovy Duck, 
signs of emotion common to both sexes. 
Returning to Baer's Pochard, it may interest your readers 
to know that this species has not appeared in our Bazaar 
this winter. 
Yours &c., 
- Indian Museum, Calcutta. F. FlNN. 
lOth April, 1902. 
Sirs, — Judging from the editorial note in ' The Ibis,' 
April 1902, p. 353, it has come upon the Editors as a shock 
