462 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Thus this bird really looked like a new species of Aex ; the white 

 face was not ordinary albinism, for as the bird went into undress it 

 became mottled with the appropriate colour (grey) for that phase. 



Another drake, also, in a large lot deposited by Mr. Evans, of 

 Chicago, in the Zoo in 1912, had the same white face, but with normal 

 fans ; Edwards' figure, apparently the first one of the species, also 

 shows such a bird. Although the white face looks at first sickly and 

 unpleasing, it is, so to speak, more consistent with the rest of the 

 Mandarin's violently-contrasted colour-scheme than the normal buff 

 shadings, and so may be called a progressive variation. But as last 

 year a bird at Kew, with the left eye missing, had this well-defined 

 white on that side only and yet moulted into normal undress on both 

 sides and assumed normal buff there after that, we are faced with one 

 of the many cases where progress seems pathological. 



This summer I came 'across a male specimen of the ordinary 

 domestic race of the Muscovy Duck (Cairina moschata) showing an 

 altogether abnormal development of the bare red skin of the face. 

 This extended all over the head except on the crown and throat, 

 invading the forehead and chin to the level of the eyes, leaving the 

 ear-orifices exposed, and running down the sides of the neck to the 

 level of the end of the nuchal portion of the crest — to the point, in 

 fact, where the green on a Mallard's neck ends. The skin was 

 seamed on the neck, but not carunculated on the face, though there 

 was the usual Swan-like caruncle at the base of the bill. (I have 

 never seen the carunculated face in English-bred Muscovy Ducks^ 

 only in African, Indian, and American specimens, and it is not 

 universal in these.) The bird was healthy and not moulting ; it was. 

 a large, heavy specimen, and, from its stiff gait, I should say very 

 old. It had no abdominal flap or " keel " such as one often sees in 

 this and other domestic Ducks and Geese, and its colour was that of 

 the wild race — black with white wing-eoverts — but with a large 

 admixture of white on the neck and breast, a flesh-coloured bill, and 

 light yellowish feet. It was inactive even for its sluggish species,, 

 and I never saw it erect its crest when challenging another bird. — F~ 

 Finn. 



Note on the Nesting of the Wren. — Some time ago this season I 

 visited a friend, and noticing some birds' nests in his home I made 

 the remark, " This appears to be a cock Wren's nest, and a fine one- 

 too," and enquired where he had met with it. He told me it was a 

 cock's nest, as I surmised, but, it being such a fine nest, he took it 

 home in July, and to his surprise he found it to contain eggs— five* 



