Birds. 667 



yet the young common or domestic pigeon has habits of a very simi- 

 lar kind, when molested, that is, by man; — to their parents of course 

 they would not behave in so undutiful a manner. The fact must be, 

 I apprehend, that in the case of the ringdoves hatched under a com- 

 mon pigeon, instinct was so strong as to reveal to them the circum- 

 stance that the bird which was tending them was not in reality their 

 parent, and might, therefore, be their enemy. 



J. C. Atkinson. 

 Hutton, Berwick-on-Tweed. 



Anecdote of a Hen "periodically changing the Colour of her Plumage. My friend Mr. 

 Thurnall has a hen which regularly changes her colour with every moult ; one moult 

 pure white, and the next jet black. How is this to be accounted for? — Frederick 

 Bond ; Kingsbury, June 13, 1844. 



Anecdote of a Pheasant. In the breeding-season of 1843, a cock pheasant and two 

 hens had taken possession of a hedge-row at the bottom of a field before the house of 

 my bailiff. The hens were sitting, and the cock was strutting about during the day, 

 but would occasionally venture near the house. One day a cat from the house was steal- 

 ing down the field in the direction of the hedge-row, the cock pheasant perceiving her 

 instantly flew at her, attacked her and fairly drove her back. The pheasant had not 

 been reared there, and I imagine was bred in a state of nature. — William Peachey ; 

 Petworth. 



The Moa, or Gigantic Bird of New Zealand. " From a letter just received from 

 Mr. Walter Mantel], of Wellington (son of Dr. Mantell), there seems still to be some 

 doubt as to the extinction of this colossal race of bipeds. It appears that an emigrant 

 from Sydney, lately settled at Piraki, or Waikawaite, has fallen in with a tribe of na- 

 tives, previously unknown to the Europeans, and from them he has obtained informa- 

 tion as to the existence of birds from ten to fourteen feet high, in the interior of the 

 island Te Wai Ponama. Mr. Mantell proceeds to remark that * our comparative ana- 

 tomist, Dr. Knox, and myself, much regret that no copy of Prof. Owen's paper on the 

 Dinornis is in this colony : but the account in the ' Penny Cyclopedia,' Art. Unau, has 

 interested us greatly. I long ago directed the attention of M. Sturm (a German na- 

 turalist, residing at the East Cape) to this subject, and he has promised to procure me 

 a large collection of the Moa's bones from the bed of the Wairoa, a river flowing into 

 Hawke's Bay, when the stream shall be sufficiently lessened by the summer heat. Near 

 Taranaki, to the north of Cape Egmont, the bones are said to occur in large quanti- 

 ties, on the site of an ancient and deserted Pa.' " — Atheneeum, July 6, 1844. 



Note on a Woodcock. A young woodcock, half grown, was taken in Wharncliffe 

 wood, near this place, a few weeks since. — John Heppenstall ; Upperthorpe, near Shef- 

 field, June 28, 1844. 



Notes on the Moorhen. I venture to trouble you with the following remarks, which 

 have occurred to me in consequence of reading in the April number of * The Zoolo- 

 gist,' under the head of " Notes on the Moorhen," some observations with reference to 

 the power which the moorhen possesses of " submergence,'' and of keeping its body, 

 and all but its beak or head, concealed under water, when alarmed by the approach of 



