NOTES AND QUERIES. 113 



Pochard recently examined by hini, and I am much interested in what 

 he says. I find that the large majority of authors who describe this 

 species say nothing at all about the colour of the irides in the females 

 and young birds. Personally, I should expect to find the eyes brown in 

 immature birds. It may be of interest to Mr. Bird and other of your 

 readers to know that my friend Mr. Robinson, of Lancaster, handled 

 a female Tufted Duck some few years back, in which the irides were 

 quite white. At the time he was inclined to think this Duck, which 

 was shot at the mouth of the River Lime just above Glasson Dock, to 

 be a white-eyed Pochard, from the colour of its eyes ; and, to satisfy 

 himself, he forwarded the bird to Mr. Eagle Clarke, of the Edinburgh 

 Museum. Mr. Clarke pronounced it to be undoubtedly a Tufted Duck 

 (Fuligula cristata), but was quite at a loss to account for the white eyes. 

 I can fully endorse all Mr. Bird says with respect to the eye in the 

 adult male Pochard (F. ferina). The colour most certainly does fade 

 very rapidly to yellow after life is extinct. I think Mr. J. W. Harting 

 is very happy in his description of the colour of the irides in this 

 species, and I quote the following extract from his 'Handbook to 

 British Birds,' new edition, p. 250: — "Having shot many of these 

 Ducks at various times, and occasionally as late in the spring as the 

 end of March, I have noticed that the colour of the iris varies with age. 

 In the young bird it is pale yellow ; in an older bird, orange ; in a fine 

 adult male, crimson ; but the colour has been observed to change from 

 red to yellow from excitement (see Stevenson, ' Birds of Norfolk,' 

 vol. hi. p. 207)." — Feed Smalley (Challan Hall, Silverdale, Lanes). 



With reference to the note, on the eyes of Fuligula nyroca, of the 

 Rev. M. C. H. Bird (ante, p. 75), I find that Naumann (' Naturgeschichte 

 der Vogel Mittel-Europas,' vol. x. p. 183, new edition) writes as follows 

 (I translate roughly) : — " The small and sparkling eye has in the quite 

 young bird a grey-brown, then a dark brown iris, which presently 

 becomes ringed with ash-grey. It then turns light grey, and with in- 

 creasing age pearl-white ; so that in the male it is in the second year, in 

 the female not till the third year, that the eye displays tbis distinctive 

 luminous colour, from which the species obtains its name of White- 

 eyed Duck." — W. B. Nichols (Stour Lodge, Bradfield, Manningtree). 



King-Eider ? (Somateria spectabilis) in Orkney. — On Feb. 28th, 

 in response to a letter from Mr. Robinson, I went to Lancaster to 

 examine an Eider which he had just received in the flesh from 

 Stromness, Orkney. On seeing the bird I was at once able to pro- 

 nounce Mr. Robinson to have correctly identified it. I found it to 

 be a King-Eider without the question of a doubt. The specimen was 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. X., March, 1906. K 



