1842.] Asiatic Society. 601 



men of Pachysoma marginatum has also been obtained, which had contrived to 

 drown itself in a vessel of water in the Society's compound, and is at present prepared 

 as a skeleton. 



In the class of Birds, the mass of small waders are now in beautiful summer plumage, 

 and as fast as we can obtain specimens uninjured by the ruthless hands of the native 

 dealers in the bazaar, they are secured for the Museum, or to be set aside for exchan- 

 ges ; but it is most provoking to observe the numbers of fine specimens, which despite 

 all that can be said and reiterated to these people ad nauseam, the stolid savages 

 persist in partially stripping of their feathers, or otherwise injuring so as to render 

 them quite unfit for preservation; in illustration of which it will be enough to mention 

 that out of the many hundreds of common Curlews (Numenius arquata) which have 

 been brought to the bazaar in the course of the season, I have not yet been able to fur- 

 nish the Museum with examples of this abundant species. 



There is a curious fact relating to the changes of plumage in these birds, which I do 

 not think has ever been distinctly stated : viz. that whilst they actually change their 

 plumage, by renewal of the feathers, to a greater or less extent, the changes of colour 

 are independent of the renovation of the feathers; thus the old feathers, prior to being 

 shed, will be seen to have acquired more or less of the hue of the new ones which 

 replace them; and these, in their turn, soon after the bird has bred, and long before 

 the autumnal moult, gradually lose the hue which distinguishes the nuptial livery;* 

 the latter is particularly exemplified by Totanus fuscus, wherein the deep sooty hue 

 which imbues even the legs, in addition to the entire plumage, of this bird in nuptial 

 garb (as illustrated by specimens now exhibited,) disappears totally after breeding in 

 the same feathers, as I have witnessed in every stage of this absorption of colouring 

 matter, so that the bird resumes very nearly the aspect of its winter uniform. It may 

 further be observed, that, at the vernal moult, the amount of renovation of the feathers, 

 and the period at which this takes place, are both very irregular, depending on the 

 constitutional vigour of the individual; some weakly birds, both young and adults, the 

 latter probably such as are past breeding, or otherwise sexually debilitated, undergoing 

 little or no change even of colouring. It is also a remarkable fact, that when a bird 

 drops its feathers at the regular moulting period, it sheds them alike whether new or 

 old, even such as had grown in place of others that had been accidentally pulled out 

 but a few weeks previously ; while, if from debility or any other cause, as sometimes 

 happens in a specimen newly caught and caged, the feathers do not fall at the proper 

 season, they then remain till the next ordinary moulting period, however distant, i. e. 

 for another year in what are termed "single moulting" species. 



Circus Swainsonii, A. Smith, v. pallidus of Sykes, female. 



Emberiza fucataf ? Pallas, Shaw's 'Zoology' IX, 385: described as "common on 

 the rivers Onon and Trigodia, in Russia." A bird answering to the brief descrip- 

 tion by Shaw, is plentiful in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, to judge from its being 



passing over which I lately brought down, I could only get a single male. Collecting so many 

 has enabled me to decide, that the specimen noticed in Vol. X, p. 840, does not differ specifically 

 from the Ph. Edwardsii vel medius, Auctorum. 



* I have even observed that, not unfrequently, the new feathers put forth at the vernal moult are 

 only partially of the colour they afterwards assume. — E. B. 



t Identified by Mr. Jerdon with his doubtfully cited E. ciu. Madr. Jl. No. XXVI, 29.— E. B. 



4 K 



