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 J ames 
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 well known hybrids occasionally occur between other 
birds of the Family. 
(6.) Querquedula caudacuta. The Pintail Duch. — 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 Contiuent. This specimen is a young 
male, and was shot by Mr Henderson near Dunbar, about 
the beginning of J anuary. 
(7.) Mergus albellus. The Smeiv. — 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 year's plumage, was also 
