1797 * Of'oitse Reared in Confinement. Editorial. 
asa umbellus togata. Voia Sd 
Gkouse Reabed in Confinement.— a correspondent of 
the Truro, Nova Scotia, Sun says that the young par- 
tridges hatched on the farm of Mr. Henry Hills, of Lower 
Stewiacke, N. S., were not hatched under a common hen; 
on the contrary, they were hatched from eggs laid by a 
tamed partridge, a pair of which Mr. Hills has had in ms 
possession for five years. The mere act of taking a nest 
full of eggs home and hatching them under a hen does 
not appear a very extraordinary feat. But the fact that 
Mr. Hills has held these wild birds in captivity for five 
years, and has at last succeeded in raising from them a 
brood of young birds, is what we call an extraordinary 
feat, and is, we believe the first instance of the kind ever 
accomplished. Another very difficult feature m Mr, 
Hills’s achievement is the fact that his birds were^cap- 
tured when fully flefeed. y t 
Ibid., p. 85. — Boh- 
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The Number of Rectrices in Grouse. — In my recent paper on the Feather- 
tracts of North American Grouse and Qiiail (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXI, 
pp. 641-653), under the genus Lagofus, I made the statement tliat the 
rectrices are always 18. Mr. Manly Hardy of Brewer, Maine, has very 
kindly written me that his experience proves the statement to be an error. 
He says that in the last 20 years he has shot 15 or 20 Ruffed Grouse 
having 20 rectrices, and, he adds, “I have in every case found those hav- 
ing 20 rectrices to be exceptionally large males. While I cannot prove it, 
still it is ray belief that none have this added pair until the^' are several 
years old. I well remember shooting three old ‘ drummers’ in one after- 
noon in November, tw'O of which had 20 tail-feathers One weighed 
31 and the other 32 ounces Old cocks usually weigh from 24 to 26 
ounces.” It seems to me that these facts are of great importance in help- 
ing us to decide whether the Galling with 12 rectrices are in that respect 
nearer the ancestral form than those with a larger number. At least they 
indicate that the number of rectrices may be increased, as well as de- 
creased, and admit the possibility that increase in number of rectrices 
may be a form of specialization. — Hubert Lymax Clark, Amherst, 
Mass. Auk, XVI, April, 1899, p. / ^A 
