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Correspondence



and on the second night the remaining two were scalped so I have taken

precaution this time and turned all out of the aviary. I have also reared

the Yellow-winged Sugar Birds again this year.


(Mrs.) K. Drake.


PS.-—I have just been up to the aviary and find four young Peter’s out

of the nest.



FIRST IMPORTATION OF THE CAROLINA DUCK


Mr. Hugh S. Gladstone has sent me the following note, which is of such

interest that with his permission I give it wider publicity. He writes : “I have

found the following statement in Mrs. A. M. W. Stirling’s (nee Pickering)

book, Annals of a Yorkshire House (1911), vol. i, p. 50.


“ ‘ The Carolina Duck has laid no eggs.’


“ This is a statement by one. Peach, the gardener at Cannon Hall, Barnsley,

Yorkshire, in a letter written to William Spencer (circa 1745).


“ Is not this a very early date for the presence of the Carolina Duck in

England ? ”


It is indeed (perhaps the earliest), for it is about the same date as Edwards’

first description under the name “ Summer Duck ” and only just over ten

years before it was first named Anas sponsa by Linne in 1758. The first

birds to reach Europe were probably brought by those returning from the

various Virginia Company expeditions, say about 1700, and if so England,

we can presume, was the most likely place in Europe for their first arrival,

as the original Company was an English one. The birds at Cannon Hall

may well have been the actual birds seen both by Edwards and Linne. They

would naturally have been popular and by Latham’s time were evidently

quite common, for he writes (vol. x, 1824), “ often kept tame . . . and breed

freely.”


E. Hopkinson.



CANDIDATES FOR ELECTION.


Baroness Cedarstroom, Haverland Hall, Norwich. Proposed by Mrs.

Wharton-Tigar.


Mrs. Edwin Lindsay, 31 Crockerton Road, London, S.W. 17. Proposed by

Dr. H. Radford Potter.


H. C. Martin, 5 The Broadway, Croydon Road, Beckenham, Kent. Proposed

by E. Maud Knobel.


E. G. Whitmore, 168 High Street, West Bromwich, Birmingham. Proposed by

B. Mott.



NEW MEMBERS


Frank Dallow, 13 Hillingdon Road, Stretford, Lancs.


Mrs. Stanley Dennis, Littlecourt Farm, Hambrook, Chichester.

Mrs. Phillip Warre, 3 Orchard Court, Portman Square, W. 1.


L. C. Webber, 153 Gale Road, Maroubra, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.



CHANGE OF ADDRESS.


Arthur Allen, to 22 Wren House, Tachbrook Estate, Westminster, S.W. 1.

Edward W. C. Arnold, to P.O. Box 909, Punta Gorda, Florida, U.S.A.

Major E. F. Housden, M.C., T.D., to Hillside, Harrow-on-the-Hill.


Miss Elsie Robinson, to Snaprails, Sandhurst, Berks.



