272 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



resentment. If the objects seized really were Earthworms (as I 

 believe), it is curious that a Sparrow should steal what one never 

 sees it catch for itself ; but American naturalists accuse the Sparrow 

 of watching their "Eobin" [Turdus migratorms) hunting worms, 

 and then appropriating his prey just as this Sparrow did with the 

 Starling.— P. Finn. 



Quadruple Duck-hybrids at Kew. — This year there have been 

 bred at Kew a brood of duck-hybrids of quadruple descent. The 

 mother was a hybrid between a Chilian Wigeon (Mareca sibilatrix) 

 and a duck which was itself a hybrid between the African Yellow- 

 billed Duck (Anas undulata) and the Madagascan Meller's Duck 

 (A melleri); the father was a Chilian Teal (Nettion flavirostre) . The 

 birds thus bred are unlike any of the four species concerned in their 

 origin ; they were as large as their mother, and of a light brown 

 colour, with the back much darker, and a sooty -black cap contrasting 

 with the whitish cheeks and fore neck ; in two the brown colour is 

 reddish and uniform ; in the other three it is more of a clay colour 

 and slightly mottled, and the light edges to the back-feathers are 

 more clearly defined. The inner secondaries, next to the "tertials," 

 are pale slate-grey, as in the Eed-crested Pochard (Netta rufina) ; the 

 speculum, in the only one in which I could see it, was slaty-black 

 with a white edge. — F. Finn. 



CEUSTACEA. 

 Abnormality in Edible Crab. — On June 18th I received a female 

 Crab of about 2 lb. weight which showed only one genital orifice, on 

 the right side. This was in the usual position and of the normal 

 size, and there was no sign whatever of the corresponding one of the 

 left side.* — F. H. Brooks. 



INSECTA. 

 Vanessa antiopa actually in Camberwell District. — In the summer 

 of 1873, when returning to my father's house — East Dulwich House, 

 on East Dulwich Green — I found a Camberwell Beauty Butterfly, 

 which I still have in my possession, in a Spider's web. It was very 

 much alive but necessarily had become a very poor specimen through 

 being in such a position. Of course it would have been of no use 

 had it not been practically extinct in these islands. It has the white 

 band round the wings, but it is a wreck. — Walter Morgan. 



* We are much indebted to Mr. Brooks for having shown us this 

 specimen. — Ed. 



