196 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



A VE S. 



Abnormal Coloration in the Common Snipe. — On February 9th 

 Mr. G. Jefferies, of Leadenhall Market, sent for my examination a 

 strange Snipe received in the ordinary way of trade from an English 

 estate. The bird certainly had a most striking appearance, but this 

 was due entirely to the colour of the legs and feet. In plumage, 

 beak, and eyes it was nothing but an ordinary Gallinago ccelestis — 

 perhaps a little above the average so far as brightness of colour was 

 concerned ; the axillaries held as much white as black in their 

 pattern. The legs and feet were a clear golden or orange buff, flushed 

 here and there on the toes with salmon-pink, and on the " heel" or 

 hinder aspect of the tibio-tarsal joint with pale lemon-yellow ; the 

 claws were dark slate-grey. I have many notes on abnormally 

 coloured feet in other birds, but it is the first time I have noticed a 

 Snipe aberrant in this detail. 



Exactly a month later Mr. Jefferies sent me a cream-coloured 

 Common Snipe received from Ireland. It was a partial albino 

 deficient in both black and brown pigment, and could be likened in 

 general appearance to a Collared Turtle or the back of the female 

 Sand- Grouse. Such a variety is not very rare, and of itself hardly 

 worthy of record ; but I saw at once that the feet and legs were 

 exactly the same yellowish buff as in the first-mentioned individual. 

 There were the same touches of salmon-pink on the toes, and of 

 lemon-yellow on the heel, distinguishable on close examination. In 

 this Journal for 1911 * I ventured to suggest that the Common Snipe 

 was one of the most variable of our birds, and the present note may 

 therefore be offered as some addition to my previous remarks. — 

 F. J. Stubbs. 



Large Clutch of Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus) in 

 Glamorgan. — On April 24th I found a nest of the Great Crested Grebe 

 containing the unusual number of six eggs and within a few yards 

 of the spot where, on April 20th, 1912, my friend and I obtained a 



* '• The Development of the Snipe," pp. 205 and 205. 



