1117 
SOME COMMENTS ON AND CORRECTIONS OP 
PREVIOUS ARTICLES IN THE JOURNAL. 
No. I. 
I should like to make some remarks and point out some errors, mostly clerical, 
which have appeared in the Society’s Journals and publications of late. 
Starting with Mr. Stuart Baker’s most interesting series on the “ Game Birds of 
India ” now being published in book form I should like to make the following 
comments. 
If I remember correctly, there was in a former volume of the Journal a most 
interesting photograph of the nests of the Flamingo {Phoenicopterus antiqu 
orum) ; it seems a pity that this was not made use of to illustrate the article on 
this bird in Vol. I of this work. With regard to the plates, besides agreeing 
with the reviewer in the Ibis of April 1922, p. 352, as to the bad reproduction of 
some of these, especially that of the Ruddy Skeldrake, I should like to remark 
on the beautiful manner in which Messrs. Vitty and Seaborne have reproduced 
those in Vol. II and it is to be hoped that Mr. Stuart Baker and the Society will 
see their way to have those of the remaining volumes printed by this firm. 
Grbnvold’s plate of the Bar -headed Goose {A. indicus) is a great success and a 
great improvement on Keuleman’s in the first edition. All Keuleman’s plates are 
very stiff and inartistic, and when one compares them wth the beautiful illus- 
trations by Thorbum and Lodge in Beebe’s “ Monograph of the Pheasants ” and 
with most of Gron void’s in the Game Bird Series, one realizes how inartistic those 
plates really are. I should like to remark on his (Keulemair’s) fondness of de- 
picting his ducks standing on rocks in water ; out of the eight plates painted 
by him for this series, six are standing on rocks ; one on a stump of a tree 
in water and one on dry land. The plate of the Bronze Capped Teal (N. falcata) 
is very bad. I have had considerable experience of these birds both in a dead 
and a live state, besides a good number of skins passmg through my hands, 
I have twice had live birds living in my aviary, one of the latter only died to- 
day. 
This duck is much deeper built in front than depicted by tlie artist and the 
crest never bristles like a porcupine’s quills set for action, but is pendant, even 
during excitement. The point of the long crest hangs down to the base of the 
hind-neck Avhen the bird raises its head to its full extent and when in a position 
of repose it lies along the upper back. The elongated sickle shaped tertials 
do not hang over the side of the body as shown in the plate but come right over 
each side of the tail completely hiding it when viewed from the side. The patch 
on each side of the lower tail-coverts is deep buff not pure white as given by Keule 
man and the black border in front of this is rather deeper in tint and more com- 
plete ; the white patch in front of this border is more this shape 
and it is also bordered by black in front. The colour of the feet in 7 
specimens or live birds I have examined has been more of a gre y 
hue than depicted. 
The plate of the Red -breasted Merganser (Merganser serralor) has been by 
mistake placed opposite the description of the Eastern Goosander (M. m. 
orientalis) instead of opposite p. 328. The plates in Vol. II are excellent and 
that of the Painted Snipe (R. capensis) is a great improvement on the former 
one of the male of that bird. 
Now turning to the plates of the yet mipublished portion in book form, it 
seems to me to be rather a pity, when Gronvold did his plate of the Nicobar Mega- 
pode (M. nicobariensis), he didn’t depict it in the vicinity of one of its curious 
mounds as w-as done by the artist in Hume and Marshall’s illustration of this 
bird. 
