NOTES AND QUERIES. 



animal moved a limb. Immediately after killing it, it was picked up with 

 the bill, and, throwing back its head, the bird attempted to swallow the 

 morsel. In this it failed after several trials, and finally abandoned it for 

 good and all. This Bittern lived twelve days without ever having eaten a 

 single thing or swallowed a drop of water. It passed several thin, cream- 

 coloured evacuations from the bowels every twenty-four hours, and died, 

 apparently without any pain, in a squatting position, absolutely unruffled in 

 plumage, on the evening of the twelfth day — a plucky fowl to the instant 

 of its death. There is one very interesting point to observe here, and it is 

 the fact that the lower the position a bird occupies in the system the greater 

 the length of time it seems to be enabled to go without partaking of any 

 nutriment whatever. Gannets and Cormorants will live nearly a month 

 without eating or drinking anything, while, on the other hand, any of the 

 small Passeres will succumb in a few days to such treatment. In this 

 connection it is important to note that many lizards will live several months 

 without consuming either a morsel of food or a drop of water. This may 

 be another particular in which the lower birds approach their reptilian kin. 

 While dissecting this Bittern with the view of saving its skeleton and 

 observing what else I could in its anatomy, I found that it possessed a 

 peculiar arrangement and modification of the vertebrae and certain muscles 

 in the upper third of the neck, much as we find it in Plolus anhinga, and, 

 in a less marked degree, in Cormorants, Gannets, and Pelicans. This 

 modification, which is associated with the power of the birds mentioned 

 (especially the Darters and Bitterns) of giving a quick thrust with the beak, 

 has been well described by Garrod in a paper among his c Collected Scientific 

 Memoirs,' and by Donitz, and is well worthy of close study and comparison. 

 Garrod does not mention having observed it in Botaurus and its allies. — 

 R. W. Shufeldt (Takoma, D.C.). 



Mongrel Ducks in the London Parks. — I have been asked to call 

 attention to this subject by such means as may be in my power. I do so very 

 gladly, because I feel sure that it has the sympathy of the ornithological 

 readers of your paper. The collection of waterfowl in London is a source 

 of unfailing interest, both for those who live there and for those who come 

 up from the country. Without taking up your space with instances, I may 

 say that the periods and casual coming. and going of birds, the nesting and 

 rearing of young on the part of species usually in this respect the most 

 capricious, the extremely interesting hybrids that result from cross-pairing, 

 give the London waterfowl a claim to attention that is, perhaps, almost 

 unique. Only those, possibly, who have themselves kept " ornamental 

 waterfowl" can fully appreciate all that the above implies. But a hybrid 

 is one thing; a mongrel is quite another. And nothing could more greatly 

 tend to hinder the full possibilities of this real scientific opportunity, or to 

 spoil the general result even as a show, than the presence of the horrible 



