NOTES AND QUERIES. 153 



near Newmarket, and was sent to him for preservation on Feb. 26th. — 

 G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton (Trinity College, Cambridge). 



Date of arrival of Lesser Whitethroat. — A slight error has crept 

 into my " Notes," p. 93. The date of the arrival of the Lesser Whitethroat 

 in Warwickshire in 1892 should be April 9th, not April 2nd. But the 9th 

 even, is a very early date for it. The average date of my observation 

 of this species in North Oxon for twelve years (1880-1892, omitting 1883, 

 when I probably overlooked it, and did not note it until May 2 1st), is 

 April 29th. If 1892 is omitted, the average date for the eleven years is 

 April 30th. On p, 98, for "two yards " read u ten yards."— 0. V. Aplin 

 (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Ducks assuming Drakes' plumage. — My remarks on the partial 

 assumption by female birds of male plumage (p. 15) has elicited from the 

 Rev. H. A. Macpherson a very interesting correspondence, in which he 

 mentions a female Scoter, (Edemia nigra, shot and dissected by Mr. 

 Bartlett, of Maidstone, in which the brown plumage of the upper parts 

 was replaced by black. He has also reminded me of a similar case of a 

 female Velvet Scoter, (E. fusca, in my own collection, which has no lore 

 spot and no ear spot, and a dark brown belly unsufFused with any grey, and 

 a very dark back. Both these birds are considered to be cases in point, 

 viz., females assuming male plumage, but I had forgotten all about the 

 Velvet Scoter when writing on this subject before. It does not appear, 

 from our standard works on Ornithology, that the adult plumage of the 

 female Scaup Duck has been recognised by British writers, and as the 

 females on two ox three occasions have been suspected of assuming male 

 plumage, I should like to say something about them. From the Rev. H. 

 A. Macpherson I have received eight picked female Scaups; from Mr. 

 Caton Haigh, three ; from Mr. Coburn, two ; and from other sources, seven ; 

 and I have subsequently examined five or six more, besides reading the 

 experience of Mr. A. C. Chapman, who has written at length on the 

 plumage of the Scaup Duck (Zool. 1887, pp. 7-9). Of these twenty-six 

 ducks inspected, fifteen were proved to be females by dissection, and the 

 others were assumed to be females from their plumage. Seventeen 

 of them have white faces, and of these, seven have besides sooty black 

 heads faintly shot with green, but this green tinge does not approach in 

 brilliancy the bottle-green head of a fully adult drake. Ducks in this dress 

 are adult, but are not to be regarded as females assuming the male plumage. 

 It is stated, however, by Mr. Macpherson that such cases sometimes occur 

 (' Study of British Birds,' p. 72), and he has had good opportunities 

 of investigating the different phases of plumage in the Scaup. In fully 

 adult female birds the depth of colour of the head, and the purity of the 

 white of the face, vary a little, the two finest I have seen being one from 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVIII. — APRIL, 1894. N 



