BIRDS CLAIMING TO BE ACCOUNTED BRITISH. 267 
Mr, Gatcombe has seen the supposed specimen recorded 
by Dr. Moore as killed at Plymouth, (Mag. of N. H., 
and ser., I, p. 365) as no doubt it was, seeing that it turns 
out to be a young Long-tailed Duck. In his “Sketch of 
the Nat. Hist. of Exeter,” Mr. D’Urban notes that several 
immature specimens have been obtained on the Exe, (p. 122) 
but in a later edition he has wisely omitted this, and I hear 
from him that they turned out, as I expected, young Long- 
tails again. 
Mr. Yarrell bought two “young females” in the London 
market, as he informs his readers (B. B, Ist. ed. IIL, 
p. 263), but he did not know the bird from the young 
Long-tailed Duck, as his miscalling the one killed by the 
Duke of Richmond proves (Ibis, 1859, p. 165), therefore his 
evidence must be rejected. Mr. Bond is also very sure that 
he once saw three or four young birds there, but even such 
a good naturalist as he is may have been mistaken, and as 
he did not take the trouble to preserve one, I cannot admit 
that he has proved his case. . 
Again, I have very little doubt that Mr. Yarrell was mis- 
taken when he adds, that the keeper at Sir Philip Egerton’s 
shot a female in Cheshire in 1840. Great author as he was, 
he did not know what a rare bird the Harlequin was. At 
this distance of time I cannot attempt to disprove it; but 
the following are a few additional details with which 
Sir Philip has favoured me. He writes that he believes 
the underparts were not dark, which they ought to have 
been, that it was a bird of the year, and that it was never 
preserved. Its occurrence was only communicated to 
Mr. Yarrell on the authority of Professor Agassiz, who 
chanced to be staying at his seat at Oulton Park. 
Professor Newton has given me a reference to a page in 
the Zoologist (p. 145), where Mr. J. D. Banister records a 
young female killed in Lancashire, and I have investigated 
it and find that it was a mistake, 
