NOTES AND QUERIES. 401 



East Sussex Naturalist " in which it was stated that a new colony of 

 Herons " was formed last year at Plashett Park, near Lewes." I do 

 not know if the birds continued there, but if they have done so, that 

 may account for their more frequent visits to this neighbourhood, as 

 " The Plashett " is not much more than two miles outside the parish 

 of Uckfield. However groundless my ideas may have been, I have 

 never been a great believer in birds, after an absence of some genera- 

 tions, returning to their ancestral breeding haunts, but some forty 

 years ago I often took walks with my father in the vicinity of 

 Plashett Park, and well remember him more than once remarking ; 

 " There used to be a Heronry here at one time, but the keepers 

 destroyed it, because they said the birds took the fish." I do not 

 think he ever saw it, nor can I remember that he mentioned any 

 date in connection with it, but he must have known of its existence. 

 My father was a native of Lewes, where he was born in 1828. 

 Eegarding the birds in my garden, Thrushes were building in 

 January ; Blackbirds reared three broods in the same nest, which 

 I have never known them do before; and Wrens abandoned a nest in 

 a small rustic summer-house after using it six years in succession. 

 'This nest had become very dilapidated. After causing me much 

 anxiety and disappointment, my Wrynecks left me this year — their 

 most successful year was 1912, when a brood of nine was brought off. 

 — Eobebt Moeris (Uckfield, Sussex). 



Abnormalities in Mandarin and Muscovy Ducks. — In confine- 

 ment, at any rate, the male of Aex galericulata seems rather inclined 

 towards colour-variation, although the specimens coming to hand of 

 late years have been mostly wild-caught ; while its ally, the Carolina 

 {Aex sponsa) is still, after many years of breeding in captivity, as true 

 to colour as a wild bird. The most remarkable colour-aberration in 

 the Mandarin I have ever seen was in a specimen Mr. J. D. Hamlyn 

 had on sale with many others about 1910 or 1911 ; my notes do not" 

 4*ive date. This bird, a small specimen — smaller, in fact, than a 

 normal female — presented three remarkable abnormalities ; (1) there 

 was no copper area in the crest, this being all dark-green and white ; 

 (2) the inner expanded webs of the innermost secondaries, which 

 form the fans, were black, with a slight gloss of green towards the 

 edges ; there was no trace of the white edge, nor of the " snip " of 

 rufous on the inner web, the whole fan being dark ; (3) the face showed 

 none of the buff shading usual round the eye and over the lores, but 

 was completely white up to the green of the forehead, down to the 

 jaw, and back to the origin of the hackled frill. 



