Ornithological Notes. 



247 



his collection. It is in beautiful preservation, and very 

 much resembles the one now exhibited ; the feathers, how- 

 ever, are less mottled in character, and tipped with white, and 

 the brown colour of back is more uniform, showing perhaps 

 a little more strongly the characters of the male black grouse. 

 It was taken accidentally in a trap, Mr Watson informed 

 me, in Perthshire in December 1836. (Vide Macgillivray's 

 British Birds, vol. i. p. 162.) 



It seems rather strange that birds differing from one 

 another as these do, should yet breed together; still we must 

 remember that the black grouse is a polygamous bird, not 

 pairing like the red grouse, and is therefore more promis- 

 cuous in his amours during his season of excitement. There 

 can be no doubt these birds breed occasionally together ; at 

 least they have done so in a state of captivity. Some thirty 

 years ago or more, the keeper of the pheasantry of Sir James 

 Colquhoun of Luss succeeded in getting a male black grouse 

 and a female red grouse to breed together, the hen red grouse 

 rearing a couple of young birds, which were both males. Mr 

 David Carfrae, George Street, informs me he saw both the 

 parents and young birds, which were afterwards preserved 

 for the museum of the University of Glasgow. The fact of 

 these birds being reared is mentioned in the interesting 

 volume, " The Moor and the Loch/' by John Colquhoun, 

 Esq., son of the late Sir James, and one of these birds is 

 figured, and forms the frontispiece to the work ; there can 

 therefore be no doubt of the truth of the statement, and it 

 is w T ell known hybrids occasionally occur between other 

 birds of the Family. 



(6.) Querquedula caudacuta. The Pintail Duck. — This 

 bird is one of our rare winter visitors — the birds seen at 

 times in our poulterers' shops being generally brought from 

 London, and the Continent. This specimen is a young 

 male, and was shot by Mr Henderson near Dunbar, about 

 the beginning of January. 



(7.) Mergus albellus. The Smew. — The beautiful speci- 

 men of an adult male smew exhibited, was shot at Tynning- 

 ham, on the 15th of January, by Lord Binning. Another 

 Smew, a young male in the first years plumage, was also 



