632 ZOOLOGY. 
Holden-Aiken list, Dr. Coues says “such birds as Geococeyx Cali- 
fornianus and Pipilo mesoleucus find themselves in ornithological 
company they never saw outside of a book.” Now so far from 
demonstrating the incongruity of this list, the sentence I quote 
proves the need of it. It enables us to teach even so good an 
ornithologist as our critic, and it also shows that it is never 
safe to argue on merely negative ground. The illustration he has 
chosen, so far from contirming, refutes his objections. Mr. Aiken 
informs me that not only are both of these birds found in Colo- 
rado, even in the same county, but.that he knows positively of 
several instances in which G. Californianus and P. mesoleucus 
have been seen within a few rods of each other. A valid reason 
might also be urged for the absence, in the list, of any description 
of Junco Aikeni, but it would not interest your readers to hear it: 
enough that it was both unavoidable in itself, and a postponement 
rather than an omission.—T. M. Brewer. 
Ma.rormations.—Last winter one of our pupils at New Bruns- 
wick, N. J., communicated the fact that he had purchased, the pre- 
vious autumn, of a huckster woman in Newark, a pair of young 
ducks, each having four wings. The woman had twelve for sale, 
and said that*the eggs were laid by a well formed bird; that she 
hatched a brood of sixteen, every one of them having four wings- 
The youth said that his birds used both pairs of wings in flying, 
that is, in moving rapidly on the surface of the pond. They did 
not live long. Whether this was due to any defective vitality 1m 
the birds, or to any extraneous cause, could not be learned. 
But we turn from these traditionary facts to a catastrophe, which 
our own eyes have inspected, as having befallen a family of cats. 
About a mile and a half from Freehold, N. J., lives an intelli- 
. gent family who have had for several years an annual litter of 
malformed cats. Several years ago a young male cat was brought 
from Allentown, some twenty miles distant. This cat had a de- 
formity in one front foot, which had six toes. It coupled with a 
cat of normal form and parts, and a litter of four or five was the 
result, all with six-toed front feet. The she cat became trouble- 
some, getting into the pantry, and so was sent off. ‘The kittens 
_ were disposed of except one. With this the paternal cat united, 
and the result was four kittens each having six toes on each fore- 
foot, and five on each hind-foot. This intermixing, as I under- 
