NOTES AND QUERIES. 107 



frequently during the past spring, and should now describe it as local, 

 but not uncommon. In one locality some two miles distant, where a 

 neglected orchard enclosed by overgrown hedges offers the additional 

 attraction of swampy ground with willows close at hand, at least half 

 a dozen pairs must have nested. Others seen twenty miles away, 

 near Tregaron, were also in the willows, no doubt collecting down for 

 their nests. — J. H. Salter (University College, Aberystwyth). 



White-tailed Eagle in Suffolk. — Mr. Hudson, the Ipswich bird- 

 stuffer, recently showed me a fine young White-tailed Eagle (Halia'etus 

 albicilla), shot on Feb. 9th within about three miles of the town. A 

 man shooting Wood-Pigeons had propped up a dead one as a decoy, 

 when the Eagle swooped down and began to devour it, thus affording 

 an easy shot to the concealed gunner. The bird was a female, weigh- 

 ing about nine and a half pounds, and had been feeding on Rabbits. — 

 Julian G. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Purple Heron in Hertfordshire. — Whilst in the hands of the taxi- 

 dermist, I recently examined an immature specimen of the Purple 

 Heron (Ardea purpurea) that was shot from the watercress-beds at 

 Castle Farm, near Harpenden, by Mr. George Adams, in November, 

 1902. It has since passed into the possession of Mr. C. Arnold, of 

 Batford Mills, who has kindly confirmed these particulars. — J. Steele- 

 Elliott (Dowles Manor, Shropshire). 



Variability in Colour in Duck's Bill. — As great interest is at present 

 being taken in the various forms of Geese met with along our shores, 

 which are to a certain extent characterized by the colour and markings 

 of the beak, it may not be out of place to note two instances of 

 variation among Ducks which have recently come under my notice, as 

 showing how little reliance must be placed on those characters for 

 determining races. The first is the case of the Bahama Ducks, in 

 which it was found that among fresh-shot birds the colour of the 

 triangular patch on the bill varied from deep crimson-lake to pale 

 yellow, irrespective of sex. The other instance is that of a Mallard 

 Spot-billed hybrid, which I have in my aviaries. For three years 

 this bird had a black bill with the characteristic yellow spot of the 

 Spot-bill, but last summer the yellow gradually encroached on the 

 black till the latter colour was confined to a stripe along the culmen, 

 and a transverse stripe from the culmen to the edge of the bill ; in 

 this state it remained for some four months, when it gradually returned 

 to its former condition. — J. L. Bonhote (Ditton Hall, Fen Ditton, 

 Cambridge). 



