JVOTES ON LONDON BIRDS 
15 
because the domestic duck, undoubtedly descended from the 
mallard, undergoes no such seasonal change.” I should much 
like to learn the experience of others with regard to this 
adoption of ducks’ plumage by domestic drakes. I expect it 
varies directly with the amount of freedom which the birds are 
allowed. The birds which are to be seen on the Serpentine 
have almost the same amount of freedom as wild birds ; they 
can fly wherever they wish. In a great majority of cases the 
drakes go into a more or less complete “eclipse ” in July. The 
bright green feathers of the head are the first to disappear, 
then brown feathers appear on the back and flanks, and then 
the curly tail feathers are lost. The full characteristic plumage 
is not assumed again till October. 
Early in July some friends, who live on Campden Hill, told 
me they had recently been hearing an owl at night, and from 
the description which they gave of the cry there could be little 
doubt that it was a brown owl. From various sources I heard 
similar reports, and on the evening of July 11, while sitting on 
my balcony, I saw an owl fly down Gloucester Terrace. A 
cousin who was with me at the time also saw the bird, which 
was very likely the one which, had been heard hooting on 
Campden Hill. I saw an owl again on the morning of October 
15 near the Serpentine. 
Mr. Ashley informs me that on August 14 he noticed a 
goldfinch in Temple Gardens. I observed two grey wagtails 
by the Serpentine on October 5, and another on the 15th. This 
species is by no means uncommon in autumn on the Regent’s 
Park canal, but is rare in Hyde Park. 
On October 27 the thrushes struck up, and have been 
singing more or less regularly ever since. On November 8 I 
saw a wren in Kensington Gardens, a bird which we do not 
often see in London now. The stormy weather at the beginning 
of December brought a good many seagulls to town of the 
usual species. 
My only other observation for 1897 worthy of mention, is 
that the colony of jackdaws which inhabits the trees in the 
corner of Kensington Gardens, near Kensington High Street, 
appears just now to be in a particularly flourishing condition. 
A. Holte Macpherson. 
Cuckoos Singing at Night (p. 234). — It is not at all unusual to hear 
cuckoos singing at night, especially when the moon is near the full in summer. 
There is at times quite a chorus of night-singing birds, nightingales, sedge- 
warblers, hedge-sparrows, corncrakes, if we can call their notes a song, and the 
cuckoos. And before daybreak swallows and skylarks join in, followed by robins, 
thrushes, and others in rotation. 
Astwood Bank, Redditch. 
J. Ill AM. 
